Korean Ship Orders Drop 34%

New orders received by South Korean shipbuilders dropped 34.1 percent in the first seven months of this year versus the same period last year, provisional figures from the Korea Shipbuilders' Assoc. claim. Orders in the seven-month period reached 3.84 million gross tons (GT) for 80 ships, compared with 5.82 million GT for 103 ships in the same period a year earlier.