This year would likely be a tough one for ship building in China with orders down around 50 percent, as the global financial crisis has bitten into the industry, China Association of National Shipbuilding Industry said on Monday.

It predicted that orders would shrink by 48.4 percent to 65.6 percent year-on-year in 2009.

Weak demand would reduce new ship orders to an equivalent of 20 million dwt (dead weight tonne) to 30 million dwt for the year, the industry association forecast.

As the world's third largest ship building country, China built 28.81 million dwt of ships in 2008, a growth of 52.2 percent over 2007. The growth rate was 21.8 percentage points above the 2007 level.

But new ship orders for 2008 were 58.18 million dwt, down 40.9 percent from a year earlier.

Impact from the financial crisis on China's ship building industry has begun to show up since last September, according to the industry association.

To boost development of the industry, the association said, the central government would promulgate a stimulus package involving financial support in the near future.

Source:Xinhua