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Container
14
May 2013
GLOBAL trade forecasts for 2013
are already being revised down, only a
few months into the year with the latest
estimates from Clarkson dropping from
6.6 per cent a month ago to 6.1 per cent
today.
The maritime consultancy group
expects containerised trade to reach 166
million TEU in 2013, which will be
the highest ever recorded figure for the
industry. But even in this early stage of
the year the forecasts for the major trades
are coming down significantly.
According to Clarkson’s Container
Intelligence Monthly report, Asia-
Europe volumes just one month ago
were forecast to grow 3.96 per cent,
today that figure has been adjusted to
3.48 per cent for a total volume of 20.8
million TEU.
This marks an increase of just 1.46 per
cent from 2011, which was the last year
that the trade actually posted growth…
So in actual fact if this latest Asia-
Europe forecast proves accurate, the
trade will only have caught up to where
it was two years ago—and keep in mind
that 2011 was a loss-making year for the
industry and the Asia-Europe trade in
particular.
On the transpacific trade the latest
forecast is for growth of 4.3 per cent for a
total volume of 21.8 million TEU, down-
graded from the earlier projection of 5.68
per cent growth for the year.
The biggest change among all trade
forecasts covered by Clarkson in its
monthly report is on the transatlantic,
which is now expected to post growth
of just 1.58 per cent to 6.4 million TEU,
down from the earlier forecast of 4.83
per cent for the year.
Commenting on the precarious out-
look for the mainline trades this year
Clarkson said that even these revised fig-
ures for “modest growth” were subject to
further downgrades.
“This is dependent on the larger
European economies avoiding recession,
as well as US consumer demand shrug-
ging off the ongoing fiscal uncertainty,”
it said.
The US is roughly US$4 trillion in
debt and is now in the process of try-
ing to wipe out that debt through what
will most likely be a combination of
increased taxes and major spending cuts,
all of which are unlikely to encourage
consumer spending.
Clarkson again projects that a bulk of
this year’s trade growth will occur in the
emerging markets. However, even the
projections for these trades are down,
according to the latest report from the
group.
Non-mainline east-west trades, which
include the trades connecting North
America, Europe and the Far East to
the Indian Subcontinent and the Middle
East, are expected to collectively post
growth of 6.59 per cent to 21 million
TEU, down from the previous projection
of 7.61 per cent growth.
The North-South trades have had their
forecast revised down from 7.06 per cent
a month ago to 6.39 per cent today for a
total of 28.3 million TEU. This of course
is still relatively healthy growth, but the
fact that the downward revisions are
coming so early in the year does provide
some fodder for concern.
The only projection that remains
unchanged from month to month is the
“others” category, which includes all
intra-regional trades such as the Intra-
Asia or Intra-European trades, and south-
south trades as well. These markets are
expected to see growth of a very healthy
7.48 per cent year on year in 2013 for a
combined volume of 67.5 million TEU.
Intra-Asia trade alone, according to
Clarkson is forecast to grow 8.3 per cent
this year, which should see the likes of
Wan Hai, OOCL, RCL and other Intra-
Asia specialists post strong results this
year.
Total container carrying capacity is
expected to rise 6.4 per cent to 19.55 mil-
lion TEU this year, which Clarkson says
will put supply and demand growth in
relative balance for 2013, but it will still
be added onto the already
steep supply surplus in the
market from last year.
Shipping lines will no
doubt take steps to help
reduce the gap even fur-
ther. One potential prob-
lem, however, could be in
vessel cascading as larger
vessels in the 8,000 TEU
range that are now too
small for the Asia-Europe
and transpacific markets
will be transferred over to
the healthier intra-regional trades.
This could then see the supply and
demand mismatch in Asia-Europe and
the transpacific transferred to these other
markets that typically work with far
smaller margins than the larger trades,
thus making the margin of error smaller
as well in terms of rate setting.
It is still very early in the year and so
much now is merely speculative. But
what we can be sure of, even in the first
quarter, is that 2013 will be a challenging
year for the market. The only thing in
question for now is just how challenging
it will be.
n
Global container trade
growth for 2013 revised down
as market mood darkens