BEIJING — China's shipbuilding industry slowed its production during the first quarter partly due to the novel coronavirus epidemic, but new orders grew, according to government data.

The industry completed ships with a tonnage of around 7 million deadweight from January to March, down 27.3 percent year-on-year, data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed.

The country’s shipbuilders received new orders totaling 4.89 million deadweight tons during the period, up 6.5 percent from a year earlier.

At the end of last month, China's shipbuilding sector had orders amounting to 79.55 million deadweight metric tons, down 5.6 percent year-on-year.

China has the world's leading shipbuilding industry, accounting for 30.4 percent of the ship tonnage completed by the global shipbuilding industry and making up 65.5 percent of the world's total new orders during the first quarter, data showed.