The 50 ‘white list’ of Chinese shipyards are handling the majority of China’s shipbuilding business in an industry with around 300 active shipbuilders, according to data from the ministry of industry and information technology.

In the first half of this year, the 50 listed shipbuilders accounted for 80.2% of China’s completed vessel tonnage and they took 82.5% of the country’s newbuilding contracts. Their combined outstanding orderbook up until 30 June 2014 accounted for 88.3% of the country’s market share.

Data also showed that the combined shipbuilding capacity of the 50 companies exceeds 60m dwt, taking up more than 80% of China’s entire shipbuilding capacity.

Out of the 50 companies, 28 are privately-owned enterprises and 22 are state-run groups.

The ministry had released the first batch of ‘white list’ shipyards in early September, and asecond batch with 21 candidates is expected to be revealed by the end of November this year.

At the end of July this year, the ministry had actually received a total of 75 applicants for the ‘white list’, but three companies decided to withdraw their applications during the review process.

The first batch had 51 companies initially before Jiangsu New East Marine Equipment Co was struck off by the government recently, with no details provided.

China’s shipbuilding industry is undergoing a consolidation phase to remove surplus capacity as the market suffers from a recession. The downturn has led to a widespread shut down of bottom-rung and speculative yards, bringing the total number of active yards to around 300 today from more than 3,000 at the start of 2010.