Kobe Shipyard to stop building commercial vessels

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. will stop producing commercial vessels at its Kobe Shipyard & Machinery Works in June 2012, shifting production to two other shipyards in Nagasaki and Shimonoseki, Yamaguchi Prefecture. Announcing the move, MHI officials said the company faced tough price competition from rivals in South Korea and China amid a slowing market hard hit by the global financial crisis. ?The Kobe shipyard will specialize in constructing submarines ordered by the Defense Ministry and deep-submergence research vehicles, according to the officials. ?Established in 1905, the Kobe shipyard has been one of the company's key shipbuilding and machinery plants. ?Of the shipyard's fiscal 2009 sales of 360 billion yen ($4.1 billion), nuclear power plants and related products accounted for more than 70 percent. Construction of cargo ships generated 35 billion yen. ?After June 2012, container ships and car and truck carriers will be built in the Nagasaki and Shimonoseki shipyards.