The European shipbuilding industry is in a crisis and the European Union should provide assistance to the industry to prevent further job losses and help owners to replace aged vessels with modern ones, said Corrado Antonini, chairman of the Italian state-owned shipbuilder Fincantieri.
“With regard to passenger ships, there are signs of recovery although industry experts have indicated that in the next few years ship owners are more likely to seek to increase economic return rather than the size of their fleets,” he said at the company’s agm in Rome.
Orders to yards in the medium term are forecast to total no more than 6-8 ships a year, compared to an average of 12 in the period 2004-2007, with a peak of 16 in 2007. In addition, deliveries are being staggered over a longer period of time.
“Effectively it is impossible to saturate the production capacity of shipyards which build for this high profile niche market, yards which to date are all located in Europe: Italy, Germany, France, Finland. Hence the vast majority of EU shipbuilders, who are also penalised by a strong euro, are in crisis,” Antonini said.
“Against this perspective, the European Commission must accept that it is necessary, as was already evident in previous years albeit never effectively translated into measures, to provide stimuli to demand with the aim of ridding European waters of obsolete vessels and to adopt instruments, which favour the construction of ships with an advanced environmental profile.”
“This would help overcome stagnated demand in the ferry sector which has been hit by the difficulty to find financing for newbuildings and by shipowners restructuring,” he concluded.
