Container shipping: very little momentum
German shipping companies have a particularly strong market position in
container shipping.
According to the German Shipowners’ Association (VDR),
German companies owned 29% of the global container fleet in 2015, making the
country’s merchant fleet in this segment the largest of its kind.
For years, container shipping was by far the fastest growing segment in ship
transport. Global container throughput grew by 9.7% a year between 1990 and
2007, the year before the global economic crisis began. There were many
different reasons for this growth. The extensive liberalisation of trade in recent
decades is one main factor. At the same time, the proportion of goods
predestined for transport in containers (such as semi-finished and finished
products) increased. The high speed of loading and unloading container ships,
which reduces time at berth, is another reason. Containers essentially make it
easy to use other modes of transport to continue transporting goods. The
increasing use of information and communication technology has made
transport routing more efficient. Ever larger and, historically speaking, faster
ships have made constant advances in productivity possible, which has led to
falling costs per twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU). On land, massive
investments in modern container terminals have contributed to the sector’s
growth.
Today, over 90% of break bulk cargo shipped in containers at nearly all
of the world’s major ports (degree of containerisation).
EU Forecast
euf:ba18.d:173/nws-01