Japanese shipbuilder Hitachi Zosen Corp and steelmaker NKK Corp. agreed to merge their shipbuilding operations into a single company on October 1, 2002. The move, which will result in Japan's second-biggest shipmaker after Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., is aimed at coping with increasingly harsh global competition by reducing production costs and speeding up product development. It comes as a growing number of Japanese companies are forming alliances in the shipbuilding industry to compete with South Korean rivals, which are benefiting from low manufacturing costs and the weakened won. The news boosted shares of both companies. NKK surged 9.52 percent to close at 92 yen, its highest price for the business year to March, while Hitachi Zosen jumped 4.49 percent to 93 yen.