Korea is a leading ocean country with the largest shipbuilding industry and the fifth largest shipping industry in the world. As the shipbuilding industry and shipping industry is quite huge size, they are necessarily accompanied by financing, and when the anxiety of financial sector is increasing, it will lead to the contraction of the real economy such as the decreased commercial traffic. Therefore, the level of the shipping finance in Korea requires much more improvements and efforts compared to advanced countries to lead the current status of the shipbuilding industry and shipping industry even though the shipping finance needs to play a very important role.
The capital that a shipping company needs for ensuring ships is usually 15 percent to 30 percent of the total cost, but decision-making is not easy due to a complex financial structure. In other words, there can be much more different decisions or results depending on the financial situation, brand awareness, credibility, operation, and investment strategy of each shipping company regarding whether they use their capital or outside capital, apply for a loan or lease, seek only the profits of the shipping charge, or consider the profits from reselling ships.
According to the result of the analysis on the successes and failures of using the shipping finance, the result is as followings. First, the shipping finance is definitely the most efficient financing method for shipping companies. Second, however, the result can be totally different depending on how we structuralize it, so the most important issue of the shipping finance is a decision about whether we select the good financial condition, or how we structuralize it. Third, we need to provide a foundation for the overall expertise such as shipbuilding, shipping, finance, management, and law to make a great decision. This means that we need "Converging" talents with a wide knowledge of shipbuilding, shipping, finance, management, economy, and law, but not just a financial expert.
In 2012, there is the careful prospect of long-term recession, and a government continues to discuss on the establishment of the shipping finance public corporation. Some currently discussed efforts will need to constantly and fiercely consider and study in a new perspective, but not a narrow and short-sighted viewpoint.
In conclusion, we expect that this study will contribute to leading the current position of Korea's leading shipbuilding and shipping country, and laying the foundation of the leading financial country a little.