Photo taken on Aug. 7, 2022 shows commercial vehicles before their shipment onto a ro-ro cargo vessel to depart for Africa at Qingdao Port in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province. By far this year, the export volume of commercial vehicles from Qingdao Port has grown over 90 percent on year-on-year basis. (Xinhua/Li Ziheng)

Chinese shipbuilders are making inroads in the emerging pure car and truck carrier (PCTC) market, with a leading shipbuilder accounting for 27 percent of global sales, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Tuesday.

State-owned giant China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC) obtained nearly 50 percent of all PCTC orders in January, the report said, citing data from UK-based Clarkson Research.

Chinese ship-makers won all the orders in January, including 17 vessels with total deadweight tonnage of 510,000 tons and 152,000 parking spaces.

Since 2021, CSSC has received orders for 35 PCTC vessels with car-carrying capacities of 7,000 to 9,200, with a global market share of 27 percent, the report noted.

In the market for large PCTCs, CSSC leaped from playing catch-up to being a first-ranked runner, according to the report. 

PCTCs became a market darling as China's auto exports exploded in 2022 to more than 3.11 million vehicles. Carmakers buy these vessels to beef up their logistics chains and export their cars.

China's shipbuilding sector has seen marked progress in the past two years.

On February 10, the world's largest newly built containership MSC Irina, which can carry 24,346 standard containers, left its dock for a sea trial in Suzhou, East China's Jiangsu Province. 

China's first domestically built cruise ship H1508 is nearly 87 percent finished and is expected to be afloat in May, which will be a milestone in China's self-sufficiency drive, according to the South China Morning Post. 

Insiders said the progress made in such specialized and advanced ships is of special importance to China in the process of industrial upgrading and scaling up the global industrial and supply chain.

Building and fitting out such ships requires top-tier products from a wide range of categories, driving the upgrading of those sectors as well. 

"The lead in PCTC reflected a strong recovery trend in the Chinese shipbuilding industry in the post-virus world," Wu Minghua, a veteran Chinese shipping analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

With the total orders, deliveries and type of vessels far exceeding its competitors, the Chinese shipbuilding industry has demonstrated its evolving adaptability and ability to absorb new technologies - the most important feature in the past decade and the main reason for foreign orders, Wu said.

Global Times