China’s “white list” policy in shipbuilding industry has aroused controversy in domestic, and now this policy has begun to attract attention from the oversea.

Clarkson said that the standard of “white list” is largely based on the facilities and equipments of a shipyard, without considering yards’ financial health, therefore, some yards which have financial problems also appeared in the list.

China has released its first “white list” of 50 shipyards that it deems worthy of favourable policy support in last month. Among them, 15 state-own yards, 33 private yards and 2 joint venture yards made it to the list.

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.

According to Clarkson’s data, 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.

There is every indication that the market share held by “white list” yards in China will expand further in the future.