South Korea remains atop the world in shipbuilding capacity at 47-million compensated gross tons or CGT.

London-based market researcher Clarkson said that China is also projected to overtake Japan this year to become number two in the world in terms of order backlog.

China's order backlog as of Wednesday reached 27-million CGT, up 55 percent from late last year, to surpass Japan's 25-million CGT.

Experts say China's big leap forward in shipbuilding is due to facility expansion on the back of all-out government support.

CGT is a measure of the building time and resources used per ton of output.