China remained the world's leading shipbuilder in the first quarter of the year, taking up nearly half of the international market share in terms of output and new and holding orders, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed.

The country's shipbuilding output hit 9.61 million deadweight tonnes (dwt) in the period, accounting for 46.2 percent of the world's total, up 2.8 percentage points year on year, according to the ministry.

New orders, another major indicator of the shipbuilding industry, stood at 9.93 million dwt, with a global market share up 1.2 percentage points year on year to 48.6 percent.

China's shipbuilding holding orders totaled 99.1 million dwt at the end of March. The volume took up 47.3 percent of the market share globally, up 2.7 percentage points from the same period last year.