Azerbaijan's shipbuilding industry in focus of Korean companies

By Azernews

By Amina Nazarli

The Republic of Korea, home to the world’s three largest shipbuilders, is interested in cooperation with Azerbaijan.

Ten major South Korean companies intend to discuss cooperation in shipbuilding industry during the forthcoming visit to Baku in September, the South Korean Embassy in Azerbaijan told Trend.

The talks will be held within the framework of the Azerbaijani-Korean business meeting scheduled for September 13 in Baku.

Representatives of such companies as Yelim Paint Spray, Mattron Corporation, Dongsan Valve, Jin Gu Engineering, Kwangwoon, KEONSAE HIGH PRESSURE, Daedong Marine TECH, MSTECH and others will arrive to participate in the negotiations in Azerbaijan.

The trade turnover with Korea in January-July 2017 amounted to about $38 million, according to the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan. Almost the entire amount of trade fell on imports of Korean products.

At the time Baku was one of the largest ports of Eastern Europe. Therefore, the city has enterprises involved in all areas of navigation. The only exception was shipbuilding, since the largest and necessary tankers, steamships and much more had to be purchased from abroad. But in 2013 the problem resolved with the inauguration of Baku Shipyard LLC, the most modern shipbuilding and ship-repair facility in the Caspian Sea.

This enterprise is aimed at elimination Azerbaijan's dependence on imports in shipbuilding and, finally, to modernize the Caspian flotilla.

The yard is capable of constructing various vessels ranging from offshore support vessels, general cargo vessels, tug boats, crane vessels, specialized vessels and passengers vessels to tankers.

It has a capacity to produce 25,000 tons throughput per annum of steel works for new buildings and able to undertake 80 -100 vessels repairs and conversion of various types.

The Korean shipbuilding industry was gearing up for a rebound in 2016 even in the face of difficulties. Last year, Korean shipyards responded effectively to crisis with proper market strategies despite internal and external adversities such as the plunge in global shipbuilding orders, weak order-winning competitiveness, intensive restructuring aiming to normalize corporate management. New orders plunged 71.0percent year-on-year to 11.6 million CGT last year in global shipbuilding and offshore markets.

Despite such unfavorable market conditions, Korean shipyards claimed the top spot in terms of shipbuilding completion, carving out 35.4percent share of global market.