全球贸易放缓,集运市场持续承压

Slowing global trade with no end in sight

集装箱航运业面临的新压力正在固化:全球贸易放缓,而且似乎看不到尽头。世界贸易组织4月2日将2019年全球贸易增长预期从2018年的3%下调至2.6%,并且同时指出全球制造业正在走弱,日益盛行的保护主义几乎看不到消退的迹象。从历史上看,集装箱货运量的增长速度往往比贸易额的增长速度快1至2个百分点.

It’s hardly a five-alarm fire and more of a slow burn,but a new pressure on the container shipping industry is solidifying:Slowing global trade with no end in sight.The World Trade Organization on April 2 downgraded its 2019 outlook for world trade growth to 2.6 percent from a 3 percent clip in 2018;global manufacturing is weakening;and there’s little sense that rising protectionism will recede.Granted,container volume growth tends to outpace the expansion of the value of trade by 1 to 2 percentage points,but both are flattening out.Container trade will grow 5.2 percent this year and 4 to 5.1 percent in the medium-term,according to IHS Markit’s Shipping and Shipbuilding 2019 outlook.Noting that the range of growth is a major change compared to the days of 2000 s when growth rates cleared double-digits,Daibor Gogic,the report’s author,said,'We must accept that globalization appears to have worked its way through the global sourcing system and that we are now back to depending on straightforward demand.'In this new era of trade,volume growth may slow globally,but regional trade growth is set to accelerate,most notably in intraAsia.Seeing the writing on the wall and the healthier margins regional services can delivery,major global container lines have been acquiring regional lines—whether it be Maersk’s acquisition of Hamburg Sud and Sealand,or CMA CGM’s purchase of Containerships.