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October 24, 2016 | 08:10

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Four hundred years ago, Dutch naval entrepreneurs operated the world’s largest fleet and established the world’s first multinational company.

Facts & Figures
- The Dutch maritime cluster comprises 12 sub-sectors and 12,000 companies, which employ 224,000 employees. The cluster has a strong international focus: 60 per cent of the seagoing ships produced in the Netherlands are destined for export. And the sustainability standards of the ships are higher each year.
-The total export was 22.5 billion euros. The maritime cluster accounts for 4 per cent of the total Dutch export. Harbor infrastructure represents the top export (32 per cent), followed by seagoing vessels (23 per cent).
Source : Scheepsbouw Nederland, Stichting Nederland Maritime Land

Today, Holland is once again a leading maritime nation, operating Europe’s largest inland shipping fleet and with world-leading manufacturers of high-end yachts and special vessels specials. Dutch companies have built up an unbeatable reputation in dredging, maritime infrastructure and maritime services. The wider Dutch maritime sector includes around 750 maritime service providers. These companies focus on technologies such as electronics, cooling equipment and transport equipment (e.g. heavy lifting and salvaging). And a special mention should go to the Netherlands’ engineering consultancies, which occupy world-leading positions in maritime engineering, dredging and spatial planning – in part thanks to experience gained in the ports of Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Dutch companies are frequently called upon to construct and maintain ports and waterways worldwide.

Equipment suppliers
- Approximately 670 suppliers with more than 18,000 employees in shipbuilding industry, providing services and marine equipment to national and international yards and other maritime companies. The majority are SMEs.
- Most Dutch equipment suppliers still had a busy year in 2015 as delivery of new ships worldwide continued at a level similar to that of 2014. The turnover figures for the equipment industry reflected this, showing a rise of over 10 per cent, from €3.8 billion in 2014 to €4.2 billion in 2015.

In the shipbuilding industry, Vietnam proofs interesting as a market as well as a regional hub for export. Besides selling equipment to Vietnamese shipyards, more and more Dutch maritime companies establish production facilities in Vietnam - or expand their existing ones – serving their customers around the globe.

Those companies are mainly located around Haiphong, where also one of Damen Shipyards Group’s joint venture yard, Damen Song Cam Shipyard (DSCS) is. DSCS, which was opened in March 2014, is state-of-the-art, bringing a western shipyard designed to meet European health, safety and environmental standards into a Vietnamese environment. It produces around 40 ships a year in the first phase.

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