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`Ships are an indispensable means of international trade and are also an important part of our national defense. In our country, whose foreign trade is increasing rapidly and whose economic growth is based on export, need for the development of shipbuilding technology can hardly be overemphasized. Thus our government has long been promoting shipbuilding industry. As a result, Korea has built a total of 5.14 million tonnage as of March, 1981, its yearly income of foreign currency from selling ships reaching 1.8 billion dollars. In celebration of this growth of our shipbuilding industry, the Ministry of Communications has decided to issue stamps depicting Korean-made ships five times this year. This is also hoped to effect diversification of our stamp material in such a way as to be palatable to philatelists at home and abraod. The following, issued on the occasion of the 5th Maritime Day, are the first two stamps in this series. 1.Oil Tanker This 260,000 dwt supertanker, built in 1976 by the Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., is the first VLCC(Very Large Crude Carrier) built in Korea. She is now one of the major ships in the Korean fleet of tankers put in the oil route between Korea and the Middle East. 51.8m wide, 344.4m long and 26.5m high, the tanker has an area two times that of the soccer field of the Seoul Athletic Grounds. The amount of crude oil that she is capable of loading is 1.8million bbls. As large as she is, she has only a small srew of 30 members because of her complete automation system. 2. General-purpose Cargo Vessel This is a 19,692 dwt cargo ship 22.9m wide, 151.2m long and 22.9m high, built also by the Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., under the Government`s 3rd Shipbuilding Project. Designed to load logs, coal, grain, etc., and equipped with a fully automated loading and navigation system, she is sailing between Korea and America at present, symbolizing our state of shipbuilding art to the world.`