Korean shipbuilders won new orders worth over US$1 billion in the first 10 days of the new year, in a complete reversal of the situation last year. STX Offshore & Shipbuilding and Hanjin Heavy Industries delivered the good news on Monday, and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and Sungdong Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering won new orders earlier.

Industry insiders said an overseas marketing drive in the second half of last year finally paid off.

Hanjin won the first order in 15 months after an order to build a large crude carrier. Its Philippine unit HHIC-Philippines singed a contract with Taiwan's Hsin Chein Marine to build two 180,000-t bulk cargos. The company will build the ships at its plant in Subic, the Philippines, and deliver them from September next year.

STX Offshore also won an order for four 57,300-t bulk freighters from Turkey's Densa. The industry estimates the value to be at least $130 million.

The first order of the year went to Daewoo Shipbuilding on Saturday last week. It is worth $750 million for one ocean plant and four ships -- two large oil tankers and two bulk freighters for the Angelicoussis Shipping Group of Greece. Daewoo aims to win orders worth over $10 billion this year.

A smaller shipbuilder, Sungdong Shipbuilding, won an order for 180,000-t large bulk freighter from a Greek company on Sunday, and will sign a contract for the same type of ship with a German company on Tuesday.