China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology reports that orders in first half 2012 are down by 50.3% year-on-year. The volume of handling orders was a mere 125.87 million DWT by the end of June, down 30.7 percent year-on-year, which can easily lead to the assumption that some shipbuilders will not be able to keep operating in the following months. "We have not received any new orders. If the situation continues, we will have only one ship to build in the second half of this year," says Pan Haiwei, general manager of Wu Zhou Shipbuilding Industry Co Ltd in central Zhejiang. Shipbuilders in neighboring Jiangsu province are also barely staying afloat.
