South Korea has leaped into the world ’ s sixth country in terms of ship holding volume . According to the Korea Maritime Institute , subordinate to the Ministry of Land , Transport and Maritime Affairs on April 24 , Korea held ships worth 36 . 76 million DWT ( 1 , 063 ships ) as of the end of January this year , ranking sixth in the world after Greece ( 175 . 711 million DWT , 3 , 087 units ) , Japan ( 160 . 722 million DWT , 3 , 433 units ) , Germany ( 94 . 513 million DWT , 3 , 189 units ) , China ( 83 . 064 million DWT , 2 , 975 units ) and Norway ( 45 . 118 million DWT , 1 , 400 units ) . Particularly , Korea has increased its ship holding volume by 15 . 9 percent over the previous year , jumping in the world ranking from eighth last year to sixth this year . Korea ’ s advance was attributed to the gigantic volume of large - size ships recently delivered to domestic shippers . Korean shippers including Hyundai Merchant Marine Co . and Hanjin Shipping Co . had ordered those ships in early 2000 weathering the financial crisis late in the 1990 s . No change was made this year against the previous year among the top five rankings -- from first ( Greece ) to fifth ( Norway ) . Hong Kong took seventh place , same as last year , with 33 . 782 million DWT ( 619 units ) and the U . S . with 32 . 999 million DWT ( 936 units ) descended from sixth to eighth . Meanwhile , the finding that the total ship volume held by world ’ s 30 maritime powers was estimated at 950 . 16 million DWT , up 7 percent from a year earlier , illustrated the bullish global ocean market . [ Sun - young Park / KHS ] [ ⓒ Maeil Business Newspaper & mk . co . kr , All rights reserved ]