This article reviews the world economy, shipping and shipbuilding markets in 2020, and prospects the markets in 2021. The novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) epidemic swept the world in 2020, and the global economy showed negative growth as a whole, resulting in the widely different shipping market segments. Except for the hot container transportation market at the end of the year, other markets were all downward. The overall delivery of the new ships has fallen sharply with approximately 31% decrease year-on-year. There was a large-scale cancellation of orders in the market, and only the offshore engineering market was basically good. Affected by the COVID-19, the new shipbuilding market declined about 11% year-on-year. And the bulk carrier was the only ship type with increased delivery in 2020. In 2021, the world economy is expected to rebound sharply year-on-year, the demand of the shipping market will be stronger than its supply, and the overall market situation will be better than that in 2020. Considering the short-term impact of the COVID-19, it is expected that the world shipping market will gradually become rational. The new ship orders of main ship types are steadily recovering in the long-term equilibrium direction, while green and intelligence are still the general direction in future.

This paper reviews world economy, shipping and shipbuilding market in 2019, and forecasts the market in 2020. In 2019, the growth of global economy was slowing. Factors such as trade conflicts and geopolitical tensions have become huge obstacles to the current economic growth. Uncertainties in the shipping market has increased with a downward tendency for the overall shipping market, but the oil transportation market is unique. The order tonnage of the new ship market has generally dropped, and only the oil ship market has performed well. The world economic growth in 2020 is expected to be better than that in 2019, but there is still a downside risk without an optimistic prospect. The shipping market will move forward under pressure, while some market segments have better prospects. The sulfur restriction legislation will result in suspension of some transportation capacity, but the fundamentals of the imbalance between supply and demand have not changed. The world's new shipbuilding market is unlikely to show significant improvement in general. Green, intelligent and upgrading are the main motive source of the market growth. In addition, the recent outbreak of the new coronavirus in China will also have a certain negative impact on the shipping and shipbuilding market in the short term. And uncertainties are expected to increase in the medium term, however, it will not have a significant impact in the long term.