WHATEVER is to be said about exciting growth rates of emerging markets, the sheer volume of slow-growing Asian output totally eclipses minor players, says Michel Looten, maritime director of the Seabury Group consultancy.
Don't be fooled by high growth figures - volumes tend to be low: anaylstWHATEVER is to be said about exciting growth rates of emerging markets, the sheer volume of slow-growing Asian output totally eclipses minor players, says Michel Looten, maritime director of the Seabury Group consultancy.
"Asia is responsible for half the world's exports and China accounts from one third of them," Mr Looten told the TPM Asia conference in Shenzhen. "Africa and Latin America have very high grow rates, but low volumes."
To understand Asia is to understand China, said the Dutch consultancy maritime chief. And by far the most important trade, is intra-Asia with volumes between south east Asia and China posting a 12 per cent growth rate.
"Intra-Asia and including the Indian subcontinent will take over from Asia-Europe in a few years," he said. "With the exception of last year, Europe has been doing poorly for five years."
Latin America, touted to be the next big thing, has been disappointing. "Africa is still largely a one-way trade with exports going there and little coming back to China," he told the conference of 500 delegates in the hall'
While most think consumer goods mainly fill containers, Mr Looten said his research shows that in terms of volume, its raw materials, from unprocessed food to waste paper, that fill most boxes today.
He said exports show that production has not moved into the interior to any great extent as may believe. "They still come from the coastal provinces. If you make something for export, you need to be close to a port," he said.
Of necessity, production of raw material exports come from the northern interior provinces, he said.
While export growth has fallen dramatically, import growth has fallen significantly," Mr Looten said.
Again, most of the imports were consumed in coastal areas, mostly in big cities, he observed.
As factory production growth had not fallen greatly year on year, Mr Looten speculated that it appeared that less had been sold on the export market and more was sold domestically.
But he cautioned that he research was confined to international container movement and that he was only guestimating.