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Container and general cargo fleet, supply/demand, ports
SUPPLY / DEMAND PATTERNS IN
CONTAINER AND GENERAL CARGO
SHIPPING
Global Insight - World trade outlook and world
contaierised trade development up to 2006 9
Pages
49-61
Nowhere has the building momentum in the global
recovery been more joyously received than among
shipowners. Liner operators are making money, and
they are euphoric about it. Box rates are increasing
steadily, and the full ships have encouraged a sharp
increase in the orderbook stretching deliveries out to
2007, despite rising new build prices.
Since the bursting of the IT bubble in 2000, the world
has had three years to adjust and absorb the resulting
damage to the economy. Terrorist attacks, the
Afghanistan and Iraq wars, escalating energy prices,
and corporate accounting scandals have diverted
economic resources, raised social costs, and reduced
investors’ and consumers’ confidence and, therefore,
slowed the economic recovery process. Continuing
technology progress, population growth, and
government monetary and fiscal stimulus have helped
to keep the global recovery on track. Entering 2004,
although the recovery has not yet played out, the
economies of most major countries have returned to
healthy conditions, with the structure and sustained
strength to continue growing. Non-Japan Asia and the
United States are taking the lead in this new round of
economic expansion, followed by Australia, New
Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, and then
Japan. Even Germany has returned to positive growth,
and the whole Eurozone has climbed out of recession.
Other economies, whether they experienced a
recession or maintained economic growth, are all
boosted by the recovery of the world’s major
economies. Global Insight’s latest forecast for the
world as a whole is for real GDP in 2004 to increase
by 4 per cent.
World full-container traffic is predicted to reach 69.7
million TEUs in 2004, an increase of 6.4 per cent
over last year. This is only a slightly slower growth
than in 2003 (which was 6.8 per cent), but far
superior to the meagre 1.1per cent growth in 2001.
With economic growth strong in most importing
regions, and with China exporting so much liner
cargo, the drivers of this increase are clear. Its
container exports are more than double those of the
9 The contribution is based on the World Trade Service published
by Global Insight. Compare www.globalinsight.com
10 SSMR June 2004
United States. Also, the growth of China's exports is
projected to be one of the fastest in the world.
The amazing dominance of China as an exporter of
containerised cargo can be seen in table 11; China's
exports in 2005 will be more than double its exports
in 2000. Its average annual growth of 6 per cent will
keep it in the top position throughout the forecast
period.
This year, China will gain another 5 per cent share of
total container exports over 2003, an amazing feat.
Tab. 11: Five Largest Container Exporting Nations
(Thousands of TEUs)
av. yearly
growth
Export-Country 2004 2005 2006 '04-'06 in %
China 15,339 17,086 18,681 10.4
United-States 6,915 7,174 7,423 3.6
Japan 4,173 4,337 4,501 3.9
South-Korea 2,913 3,065 3,225 5.2
Taiwan 2,799 2,909 3,026 4.0
Source: ISL 2004 based on Global Insight World Trade Service
Fig. 9: China - Foreign container traffic by major
trading areas 2003 and 2006 (based on
TEU)
ISL based on Global Insight; World Trade Service
TEUs from Northeast Asia dominate the container flow
picture worldwide, in terms of both volume and
growth. Shipments from Northeast Asia to North
America and North Europe will reach 13.5 million
TEUs this year (2004), and will climb to 18.2 million
in 2008. North America's container exports are
dominated by flows to Northeast Asia (3.5 million