Oil rigs the wave of the future for shipbuilders

With many Chinese shipyards' earning capability being squeezed by low technical content, appreciation of the renminbi and blind expansion, Chinese shipbuilders are looking to stay afloat by building more maritime engineering products.

A recovery is still far off, said Wang Jinlian, secretary general of the China Association of the National Shipbuilding industry, although China's new ship orders reached 46.44 million deadweight tons between January and October, about 46 percent of the global market share .

The Beijing-based association previously represented more than 730 large and medium-sized Chinese shipyards before 2011, but the figure has dropped by half after only two years.