Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has urged Asian shipyards to address the problem of excess capacity in the shipbuilding industry and called for a resolution by the G20 summit that will be hosted by Japan next year.

At a high-level trilateral summit between South Korea, China and Japan in Tokyo last week, Abe said he wanted to see the removal of “market distorting measures”, which is taken to refer to state-backed support for ailing shipyards in South Korea and China, according to government sources.