Foreign practicesof state support of shipbuilding industry

The article is devoted to the government role to support the shipbuilding industry development. The measures of administrative and economic regulations have been considered. The main tendencies of the regulations in some Asian countries have been identified according to their economic development objectives. All maritime countries have systems for the national shipbuilding and shipping state regulation. The governments provide tax and customs privileges to national carriers, particularly in the national ship construction. Great Britain and France governments provide benefits for shipbuilders. French experience is the most prominent in this respect: it reflects the policy of creating the national economic fundamentals for being a "sea power" to compete successfully with Britain in the sea. This policy has been developing for several centuries. In 1881 France was the first country in the world to introduce a system of partial subsidizing the merchant ships construction. In 1994 the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) adopted a special agreement (Agreement Respecting Normal Competitive Conditions in the Commercial Shipbuilding and Repairing Industry) to limit the size of government subsidies, loan sizes and terms, prohibiting direct financial support to establish normal competitive conditions in the commercial shipbuilding. The Agreement allows governments assist national shipbuilders in research and development only. Government policy for supporting shipbuilding depends on the political, social, and economic factors. Consultations and negotiations on maritime affairs, aimed at establishing equal conditions for competition in the shipbuilding industry, are regularly held at the meetings of the OECD and the European Commission. This is confirmed by research in the field of shipbuilding state regulations in Europe, the US, China, Japan, South Korea and other countries which show the most effective government support in the world, including subsidies, preferential loans, funding of R&D, tax and customs privileges, government measures to attract private investors. The article shows the process of structural changes in the shipbuilding industry