I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our shareholders and investors for their continued support.
During this consolidated fiscal year, the economy of Japan faced difficult conditions as the spread of COVID-19 infections caused a deterioration in corporate earnings and the employment environment. Efforts were made to both prevent the spread of infection and continue economic activities, and there were signs of a partial recovery, but there are concerns about the infection spreading again and there is still no prospect of an end to the situation. In the global economy, the level of vaccination and the easing of restrictions on economic activities differs between regions, and the future of the economic conditions remains uncertain.
In the shipbuilding and marine transportation industries, which are our company's main customers, the global volume of new construction completed in 2020 was 58.22 million gross tons, which was a 12.2% decrease from the previous year, and the orders received for new construction were for 33.36 million gross tons, which was a 24.2% decrease from the previous year. This was due to the backdrop of restrictions on movement due to the spread of COVID-19 infections and restraint regarding investment in new shipbuilding by shipowners. With the exception of China, where demand has been supported by state-owned shipping companies and government-affiliated financial institutions, demand for new construction is continuing to be sluggish.
The COVID-19 infections have brought about irreversible social change. One of the lessons from this disease has been that global climate change is a major threat that we must face squarely. In addition to responding to the needs of our customers, we are also working to respond to this issue and achieve sustainable growth. For this purpose, our group is promoting the following four priority initiatives in our medium-term management plan, which will be executed from April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2023.
As an initiative towards our major goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we have developed four dual-fuel engine models that can be switched between LNG and heavy oil. In the marine vessel field, this technology plays an important role in reducing environmental impacts and responding to fuel price fluctuations. In the field of use on land, it can play an important role as a private power generating facility that supports a disaster response and BCP (business continuity planning).
Furthermore, our research is advancing in the area of next-generation fuels mixed with fossil fuels. We are currently conducting durability evaluations for carbon-neutral biofuels that can be used on existing diesel engines without any major modifications.
In addition, we started operations at our newly established Himeji Factory in 2018 in anticipation of a shift to larger vessel sizes for the purpose of achieving higher efficiency in marine transportation. We will work to improve production efficiency with our two-base system of the Himeji Factory together with our Moriyama Factory, which manufactures small and medium-sized engines.