Maritime Trade and Transport - HWWI

5. HWWI forecast
5.1 World trade
The development of sea transport up to the year 2030 will be determined primarily by the
development of world trade. World trade represents the demand side of the market for international,
and thus related national, transport services. The HWWI forecast for world trade is
based on an augmented gravity model, a standard model of empirical foreign trade research
used to explain bilateral flows of trade. It makes it possible to quantify the influence of geographic,
cultural, historic and economic factors on trade between two countries. In addition
to income, the most important factor in this projection, there are others, such as the geographical
distance between the trade partners, any shared border, access by sea to the trade partners,
population size, economic-political alliances like monetary or customs unions, historical
components such as colonial relationships, and numerous other factors.
Utilized for this analysis is a data record55 containing approximately 240,000 observations
relating to bilateral trade and the underlying economic, geographical, political and cultural
factors in the period between 1948 and 1999. The resulting parameters are used in projecting
future flows of trade. Accordingly, a one-percent increase in the gross domestic products of
each of two countries involved will increase bilateral trade between these countries by 0.95%.
The gravitation model shows that economic growth also results in an increase in trade
relations between the countries. According to a forecast drawn up by the World Bank, substantial
increases in production and income are to be expected in all regions of the world by
the year 2030. Fig. 34 shows the World Bank forecast of average annual growth rates.
The greatest economic growth, as predicted in this study, is expected in the southern and
eastern Asian countries. According to the gravitation model, the highest growth rates in world
trade will thus be seen between the Asian regions and the rest of the world. The matrix in
Fig. 35 shows the annual growth rates in trade within and between the regions, as determined
by linking the gravitation model and the GDP growth forecast. 56 Information regarding trade
between EU member states, in which we focus on maritime trade, is shown in Fig. 36.
5.2 Maritime trade
The expected trade volume, in tons, is more germane to the transport industry than future
trade measured in euros. However, it is not possible to directly induce the trade volume from
the real trade in euros. This is because, over the course of years, trade volume has undergone
a different development than trade value. In more precise terms, in recent years trade in euros
55 The data record is found on the homepage of Andrew Rose (http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/arose) and
can be downloaded. For the analysis and simulation, use was also made of the article by Andrew Rose
(2004), which is also based on this data.
56 Numerous variables in geographic, bilateral political or cultural factors, such as access to the sea, colonial
relationships, shared language, etc., will not change during the forecast period, or are not expected to
change. Since the share of freight costs in trade values has proven constant in recent years, geographic distance
does not play a role either as an explanatory variable for transport costs in the simulation.
60 Berenberg Bank · HWWI: Strategy 2030 · No. 4