Shipping boom to stabilise in H2
Shipping group Maersk, often seen as a barometer for global trade, on Tuesday cautioned the container market may normalise in the second half of the year, even as it raised full-year guidance driven by high container freight rates. The shipping industry has seen record profits in recent quarters as a surge in consumer demand, pandemic-related bottlenecks in the US and Chinese ports and more recently an airspace closure following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted a spike in freight rates. But the forecast from Maersk, one of the world’s biggest container shippers with a market share of around 17%, according to intelligence provider Alphaliner, is likely to be seen as a negative sign for the global economy. Maersk said in a trading update on Tuesday that container volumes declined 7% between January and March. The company now expects growth in global container demand to slow this year to between minus 1% and plus 1%, compared to its previous expectation of 2-4% growth.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 27th, 2022.
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