Not only that, I do think that building in Vietnam is considerably cheaper than in South Korea, and certainly in Japan. Whether Korean owners are in a great hurry to order in China, I doubt.

Thanks for the info, Pieter. Since this vessel was built for a South Korean owner, it's maybe also worth noting that there are very few yards in South Korea nowadays capable of building ships of this type and size (Dae Sun in Busan is the only one that comes to my mind, actually), while some other smaller yards were closed in the past 10 or so years: Shin-A in Tongyeong and Sekwang in Ulsan, for instance. Larger yards, of course, are busy building larger ships...

Cheers

Vlad

Built by the Pha Rung Shipyard, whch should ring a bell with our Finnish members. It was set up with the help of Finnish development agency FINIDA and became a very expensive project. I was involved in a mission during the nineties to have a look at the viability of the then repair yard only. We concluded there was a future, and apparently the yard is still operating.