BEIJING -- China's shipbuilding industry continued to lead globally in the first three quarters of this year, boasting the biggest international market share in terms of output and new and holding orders, official data showed.

The country's shipbuilding output reached 27.8 million deadweight tonnes in the period, accounting for 45.9 percent of the total globally, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

New orders in China's shipbuilding sector took up 53.6 percent of the overall orders globally, while its holding shipbuilding orders accounted for 48 percent of the global total, the ministry said.

In the same period, the industrial output of the country's 75 key shipbuilding enterprises totaled 291.3 billion yuan ($40.59 billion), according to the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry.

These firms raked in 3.22 billion yuan of revenue in the first three quarters, up 220.9 percent from the same period last year.