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Malaysia dropped two places down
to 20th most important maritime nation in the
world in the ranking carried out by the Review
of Maritime Transport 2006 released by UNCTAD.
Malaysia’s which was ranked 18th most important
maritime nation in the 2005 Review, was
overtaken by Turkey and Iran (Islamic Republic)
taking up 18th and 19th position respectively.
According to the UNCTAD Malaysia owns 325
vessels above 1,000 grt with total combined 9.63
million dwt as of 1st January 2006.
This is made up 1.06 per cent of the total world
merchant fleet which stood at 960 million
deadweight tones (DWT) on 1 January 2006.
It was obvious that shrinking of Malaysian fleet
and ranking was attributed to the sale of ships
by local owners seeking to capitalise on
unprecedented high ship prices.
The market condition in 2004/5 offered ideal
opportunity to shipowners worldwide to sell off
their assets, including vessels that were ageing
or had to meet nearing deadlines of new ship
conventions and rules, particularly for tankers
and dry bulk carriers.
Topping the list of the world most important
maritime nation was Japan
Japanese fleet size totaled 3,091 ships with a
combined 131.70 million dwt and made up 14.52
per cent of the global fleet during the period.
Japan was followed by Germany, China, USA,
Norway and Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore.
Singapore, which offers open registry to
non-national residents, overtook United Kingdom
position and ranked as ninth important maritime
nation.
The world merchant fleet stood at 960 million
deadweight tones (DWT) on 1 January 2006.
The 2006 global fleet growth represents a 7.2
per cent increase over the start of 2005, at
which time the world fleet has expanded by 4.5
per cent over the tonnage in 2004.
The growth rate, according to the UNCTAD report,
was the highest since the beginning of 1989,
when the world merchant fleet started to expand
after the contraction of the 1980s.
New building deliveries represented 70.5 million
dwt, while 6.3 million dwt were broken up and
lost. The result was a net gain of 64.2 million
dwt in 2005.
The tonnage of oil tankers increased by 5.4 per
cent while bulk carriers by 7.9 per cent.
These two types of ships represented 72.9 per
cent of total tonnage, a slight decrease from
73.3 per cent in 2004.
The fleet of general cargo ships increased by
4.5 per cent in 2005, reversing the trend of
previous years; this category now represents 10
per cent of the total world fleet.
In terms of deadweight tonnage, the fleet of
containership increased by 13 million dwt, or
13.3 per cent, and now represents 11.6 per cent
of the total world fleet.
The growth rate reflects the increasingly
prominent share of manufactured goods being
traded in containers.
The deadweight tonnage of liquid gas carriers
mainly LPG and LNG continued to increase for
another year and at good rate, while that of
ferries/passenger ships did so at the modest
rate of 1.1 per cent. |
