Koichi Fujiwara took over as head of ClassNK six months ago, just as newbuilding contracting in the Far East ground to a halt.
It was a daunting situation, but one with which Fujiwara is all too familiar from his previous job.
As a former Japanese government ministry of transport bureaucrat, he was involved in the rationalisation of the domestic shipbuilding industry when it suffered an almost identical crash in orders in the 1970s.
“The
