Samsung Heavy Industries has ordered 20 15,000-TEU container ships from Panamanian shippers at a price of 2.8 trillion won, the largest single order in the shipbuilding industry, Yonhap reported. Foreign media said the order unit is the world's seventh largest shipping company, Taiwan Evergreen Marine Co. Ltd.

Samsung Heavy Industries also secured an order for 20 container ships from Evergreen in 2010. Evergreen Marine, which previously ordered new ships mainly from Japanese yards, secured the big deal after maintaining good relations with Samsung Heavy Industries. Samsung Heavy Industries has received orders for 42 ships worth US $5.1 billion this year, completing 65 percent of its annual target of US $7.8 billion, according to statistics. In the same period last year, Samsung Heavy had orders for just three Shuttle tankers worth $300m, or 3.6 per cent of its full-year target.

Korea Shipbuilding & Marine and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine have also done well this year. Korea Shipbuilding Marine, the world leader, has booked orders for a wide range of new ships this year, including VLCS, LNG carriers, VLCS, LPG carriers and RO/RO ships. Korea Shipbuilding Ocean has booked orders for 62 ships at $54, or 36 per cent of its full-year target of $15bn.

Daewoo Shipbuilding has booked orders for 19 ships worth $1.79 billion this year, or 23 per cent of its full-year target of $7.7 billion. As well as an increase in orders for new ships as the global economy recovers, the country's three biggest yards are also responsible for the spring in South Korea's shipbuilding industry's near-monopoly on orders for container ships and tankers, which have seen freight rates surge recently.

According to Clarksons Research, a UK-based shipbuilding and shipping industry analyst, South Korea has accounted for 1.71 million CGT, or 43%, of the 4.02 million monthly global orders for new container ships so far this year.