Europe’s shipyards are likely to form joint ventures with Chinese yards to construct cruise ships tailored to the local market, the chairman of the world’s largest cruise ship builder has predicted as the sector faces growing Asian competition.

Corrado Antonini, chairman of Italy’s state-owned Fincantieri, was speaking at Cruise Shipping Miami, the biggest annual gathering for the cruise shipping industry. Cruise ship building is the last area where European shipbuilders enjoy a world-leading position. Since 1990 Fincantieri alone has been responsible for 35 per cent of the cruise ship capacity delivered worldwide.

Cruise shipping is growing rapidly in emerging markets such as Brazil and China, raising the question of whether cruise ship building might also migrate to Asia. China is by some measures now the world’s biggest power in commercial shipbuilding, followed by Korea and Japan.