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Berlin / Rostock (dpa) - The coordinator of the federal government for the maritime industry, Norbert Brackmann, called for a European shipbuilding strategy in the fight against the overwhelming competition from China.
"We need a uniform European language, a European coordinator is urgently needed," said the CDU politician before the National Maritime Conference, which began on Monday.
A monopoly must be prevented.
Brackmann did not consider a subsidy race with the Chinese, who strongly promote their shipbuilding industry, to be sensible.
Brackmann emphasized that Europe had the economic strength to negotiate on an equal footing with its Asian competition. It is true that there are mutual dependencies, but Europe can expand its lead in competence, which is still present in many fields. The two-day industry meeting is about working together on the future viability of shipbuilding. Around 95 percent of European shipbuilding orders were currently going abroad, mainly to China. China is sometimes offering its ships on the market for less than their material value.
The twelfth edition of the conference with more than 1000 participants was originally planned in Rostock, but is now mainly held digitally.
The reason is the corona pandemic, which also contributed to a considerable extent to a crisis in the German shipyards.
Among other things, the most important mainstay of German shipbuilding has been badly hit because of the massive slump in worldwide cruise shipments.
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“We can see that some of the cruise ships around the world are on the move again. But that's not enough to earn money again, ”said Brackmann. But it becomes clear that the customers are there and the market is picking up again. With a lead time of at least two years between the order and the start of construction of a ship, however, the industry must prepare for a bitter time, said Brackmann. The problem is that the shipping companies first have to reduce the mountains of debt before ships can be ordered again on a large scale. According to earlier information from the Association for Shipbuilding and Marine Technology (VSM), the cruise industry lost more than 20 billion euros in 2020.
The IG Metall coast warned of the loss of thousands of jobs in the industry.
"In the shipyards alone, more than 1,000 jobs have been lost since the pandemic began," said District Manager Daniel Friedrich.
Another 5600 of the 18,000 or so jobs are currently in acute danger.
He announced actions at several locations for the start of the two-day conference on Monday.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210507-99-501644 / 2
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