According to Mr Zhang Jiaguo chief analyst with the economic research center of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, China's demand for shipbuilding steel would come to 41.52 million tonnes during 2006 to 2010, 8.3 million tonnes on average annually and during 2011 to 2015 and the figure will total 51.41 million tonnes or 10.28 million tonne annually.

In China, a host of steelmakers expanded shipbuilding steel capacity from 2003, increasing the output from 3.68 million tonnes in 2004 to 6.54 million tonnes in 2006 presenting a higher growth than the ship completion. Home production basically met demand and the export also grew but for certain higher grade varieties, such as high strength ship plate, anisotropic plate, extra wide, long or thin plate and T-shape plate etc, the supply is far from enough.

In the next few years, a batch of medium plate rolling mills will be built in China, hopefully to improve quality and diversify breed of the homemade shipbuilding steel and gradually satisfy demand from shipbuilding industries.