by Marek Błuś

Ah, yes, 2020 was expected to be a banner year for the Baltic shipbuilding industry.

The cruise segment was to single-handedly add 600k gross tonnage (GT), while the entire output could reach GT 800k, nearing for the first time in a long time the enchanting one million last seen in 2009.

Not that we were gullible in trusting these figures. The investments made by Meyer in Turku and the MV Werften trio in the German Baltic looked pretty impressive, set to meet the supply of the blossoming cruise market's demand for the ever-growing in size ships.

Whereas the investment came to pass, the coronavirus showed up, keeling the forecasts table over and leaving us in Nowheresville as to when the situation will normalise - if at all.

The pandemic has postponed certain orders, forcing yards to gear down. As such, 2020 ended averagely, with 11 of the region's shipyards delivering 24 vessels, just GT 1.0k short of 2011-2020 mean of GT 306k.

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