The Press MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1967. Shipbuilding

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31305, 27 February 1967, Page 12

The Press MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1967. Shipbuilding

The United Kingdom, once the world’s largest shipbuilding nation, is now only fourth. Ships launched from United Kingdom yards last year totalled 1.1 million tons, just a sixth of Japan’s total. West Germany and Sweden, each with nearly 1.2 million tons, occupied second and third places respectively. Included in the Japanese total were 12 of the 15 largest vessels completed last year—striking testimony to the size and efficient organisation of the industry.

For British shipbuilders, the most disturbing feature of last year’s performance is not so much the relegation of the industry to fourth place in world output as the continuing decline in orders, from domestic sources as well as for export. The Shipbuilding Conference considers that most yards are currently well occupied, but has warned the industry that “the need for new orders will become urgent “during the next few months”. The conference has blamed the lack of suitable credit facilities as a major reason for the decline in inquiries from British owners. It says the high interest rate on shipbuilding loans has caused a loss of British orders. Significantly, orders placed by British operators with Japanese yards last year totalled 331,000 tons—in response, no doubt, to the lower prices and earlier delivery dates than British builders could offer. British yards continue to be plagued by labour disputes; even Fairfields, the Glasgow yard rescued from bankruptcy just over a year ago, was not immune. Much as union and management might hope for success through reorganisation, said the “Daily Telegraph” recently, the workers still seemed unable to shake off traditional attitudes. “ Fairfields may provide a favourable wage deal rela- “ tive to other shipyards; but that does not, unfortu“nately, prevent dissension over differentials among “the beneficiaries. That the yard may again be “facing the risk of closure is regrettable, but not “ surprising ”,

The Japanese industry—indeed, the whole industrial scene in Japan—presents a sharp contrast. The Japanese are constantly looking for improved industrial techniques and consciously plan their export programmes. Every large business has its planning division, which keeps a constant watch on what competitors elsewhere are doing. When successful new techniques appear, the aim is their immediate acquirement, under licence, for Japanese use. “This “ technological elan ”, a special investigator for the “ Economist ” has written, “ seems to be far more “ energetic than in British industry, which has too “ often seemed to regard the * copying ’ under licence “ of American or other foreign techniques as rather “infra dig”.

The Japanese planners do not concern themselves with industrial products for which world demand might appear to be declining. They are vitally interested in products for which there is an expanding world market—ships, automobiles, and all kinds of machinery prominent among them; and they are determined to be ready to meet the demand for industrial plant and other goods which, they are convinced, must come soon from the world’s developing countries. Japan is not hampered by “traditional “attitudes”, whether in labour or in management. The spectacular expansion of its shipbuilding industry—between 1962 and 1966 launchings rose from 2.2 million tons gross to 6.7 million tons—strikingly illustrates the success of the planning techniques employed. This overriding concern for tomorrow’s export industries, as opposed to today’s possibly evanescent ones, the “Economist’s” investigator regards as “a deliberate feature of Japan’s short-term “policies, and not just one of its vague long-term “ aspirations ”, The lesson for Britain is apparent in last year’s performance of its shipyards.