LLOYD'S Register, a leading ship classification society, expects revenue from its marine division in China to grow 47 percent this year as the country's ship yards continue to capture a record number of orders for new vessels.
The firm may generate sales of 21.3 million pounds (US$42.5 million) in China during the 2006-07 fiscal year ending on June 30, against 14.5 million pounds a year earlier, said Roy Thomson, who heads Lloyd's Register's China operations.
"We also expect our revenue to grow another 25 percent for next fiscal year as both the state-owned and private yards in China are showing no signs of slowing down in terms of the orders they capture from the global marketplace," Thomson told Shanghai Daily in an interview.
Lloyd's Register's revenue for the January-to-March calendar quarter this year jumped 59 percent, to 5.13 million pounds, after it won more contracts to class new vessels ordered at yards across the mainland.
Bulk carriers accounted for most of the growth, Thomson said, but it also won contracts for large container ships.
The London-based company provides a wide range services related to classification, safety, quality and risk-management for the global ship-building industry, as well as playing similar roles in support of the rail and oil and gas industries.
Citing data compiled by the marine trade magazine Fairplay, Thomson said Lloyd's Register had captured the class contracts for about 20 percent of the ships built and ordered in China in 2006, a volume that saw it become the market's No.2 player.
It competes with rivals such as American Bureau of Ship, Bureau Veritas of France and Norway's Det Norske Veritas, all of which have set up in China.
The pace of growth being experienced by China's ship-building industry and intensified competition among class societies made the sourcing of qualified new employees a challenge, Thomson said.
But the company had an aggressive global hiring strategy in place to make sure it doesn't get caught short as China's ship yards undertake their breathtaking expansion.
Thomson expects Lloyd's Register's marine-related workforce on China's mainland to have expanded to 280 employees by June 2008 - from about 220 at present - and thereafter to continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10-20 percent for the next five years.