One hundred and twenty leading executives from the major shipyards from Japan, Europe, China, Korea and the U.S. (JECKU) held a conference to exchange views on global economic development, supply and demand prospects as well as important technological and regulatory developments to improve the environmental performance of ships. The conference conclusions by Chairman Guanggin Zhang from the China Association of National Shipbuilding Industry highlighted that although confidence in the sector is slowly returning it would take still some time for the world shipbuilding industry to recover from the great impact of the world economic crisis.