Black Sea Sees Shipbuilding Boom

According to Today's Zahman, Black Sea sees shipbuilding boom, Mediterranean springs a leak More than 90 percent of world trade is conducted through sea shipping, making shipbuilding one of the fastest growing industries in the recent boom in global trade, which has grown on average by more than 5 percent annually. As a natural consequence of Turkey being a peninsula located at a strategically central position close to many wealthy European markets, Turkey’s growth in shipping construction has outdone all of its global rivals in the last four years, growing 360 percent.

The Black Sea region, has been the main beneficiary from this unprecedented upswing. Maritime Undersecretary Hasan Naiboğlu said workshops to manufacture small vessels and fishing boats in the Black Sea district of Ereğli are being modernized to create at least half of the capacity of the shipyards in Tuzla, İstanbul. Boat yards are opening one after another in the Black Sea region, he noted. According to figures provided by the undersecretary, Turkey is the world’s eighth-biggest ship manufacturer, with 1.8 million deadweight tons (DWT) worth of orders last year. It was 23rd in 2002. Turkish shipyards completed 135,000 DWT of orders in 2002, rising to 600,000 in 2006. The sector has invested $500 million in the last three years to expand facilities and improve them technologically. The number of shipyards active in the country was 37 just five years ago. Thanks to efforts to meet an ever-increasing demand, the number has jumped to 59. Meanwhile projects, investment and feasibility studies for 61 new shipyards are currently ongoing. Once these new production facilities are completed, the country will have 120 shipyards with a capacity of constructing 9.2 million DWT of vessels per year. Additionally the biggest ship that a Tuzla shipyard was able to construct was a 20,000-DWT vessel, but now it is possible to build vessels six times as large, and new investments are underway to enable the building of 180,000 DWT ships. Source: Today’s Zahman