by Marek Błuś
This year's end grants us with a good opportunity to summarize the entire second decade of the 21st century, hence provide us with the answer whether it was favourable to the European shipbuilding industry in general and to the Baltic Sea region in particular. No, it was not.
Back in 2008, Europe's yards climbed to their historic top thanks to delivering 6.0m gross tonnage (GT). Two years later, it was GT 4.1m, and after another 24 months - GT 1.9m. The continent's share in the global ship completion went down at an even faster pace, from 9% in 2008 to just 2% in 2012.
Since 2015, the European GT output has been under 2.0m, except for the 2.5m+ 2016-17 period, but other than that, nothing indicates a change for the better in the foreseeable future.
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