With an expectation for an economic recovery after 2011 increasing and the atmosphere that vessel prices have hit the bottom and taken an upturn proliferating, the newbuilding market is getting more and more heated rather than starts the sort-out for the end of the year as in other years.

In particular, mega containership orders are most expected to be placed as the shipbuilding industries predict newbuilding orders coming to the market would reach 100 vessels.

The world's biggest liner Maersk is now negotiating with Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Equipment to order 20 mega boxships of 18,000-teu class for a price of around $4bn.

On the price matter, it is said the gap between Maersk and Daewoo is huge, but Daewoo is believed to handle the price gap with flexibility in terms of achieving the world's largest volume.

Also, Taiwan's Evergreen, which ordered 20 vessels of 8,000-teu class at Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries in 2010, is planning to place additional orders for 10 vessels of the same type. For this order, Samsung is believed to be a prime candidate to win.

Furthermore Seaspan and Zodiac are said to be ordering 40 vessels of 10,000-teu class before or after the first quarter of next year and six 13,000-teu boxships respectively.

Meanwhile, LNG ships have seen fewer newbuilding orders over the last few years due to the controversy of oversupply, but Nigeria's Brass LNG is now planning to order at least 12 vessels. The final decision on the order is seen to be soon made.

In the case of the cruiseship sector, which is paid the biggest attention by European shipbuilding businesses, Samsung is processing the final negotiation with Utopia on the newbuilding order for a luxury condo-style cruiseship worth around $1.1bn.

Samsung is aiming to see the end of the negotiations within this year or, at least, by next January.

Korea's STX Offshore & Shipbuilding is also said to be on the negotiation process of a cruiseship contract.

Experts say, "most of the high value-added vessels would be ordered from Korean yards because Chinese yards are lack of building technology for those types of vessels and Japanese ones stand at the weak position in terms of a price competitiveness."