Chinese shipbuilders received 44 percent more orders year-on-year from January to May, but completed orders slipped by 23.7 percent compared with the same period last year.

In the first five months of this year, shipbuilders' orders were up 44.2 percent from a year earlier.

However, domestic shipyards saw their orders in hand declined by more than 23 percent year-on-year, the China Association of National Shipbuilding Industry said on its official website on Tuesday.

The decline in completed orders lead to a 22.4 percent drop in the revenue of the nation's 80 major shipyards.