Container shipping to soar in coming years, says Evergreen chairman

BARRING unexpected disasters, the container market looks set to flourish in the years ahead, with China's economic boom continuing to drive growth in container transport and other industries, according to Arnold Wang, chairman of Evergreen Marine Corporation, who spoke at the World Shipping Summit (China) 2007 on November 2 in Tianjin.

Mr Wang noted that over the past decade China's remarkable economic growth has brought structural changes to global container shipping and other related industries, including shipbuilding and terminal operations.

"In 2006 container throughput in all Chinese ports reached 80 million TEU, or one-fifth of the global volume. For cargo from Asia to Europe and North America, China's exports have accounted for more than half of market volumes.

Over 10 years, the rise of Chinese mainland has forced changes in port operations and in shipyards, he said. The centre of world shipping centre is moving to the east Asia, he said and this has resulted in dramatic increase in mainland's throughput and has led to the reshuffle of the world's port throughput ranking. Statistics show that by 2015, Shenzhen and Shanghai will probably be the world's second largest ports at the same time.

He added that China's labour force is also making the local shipbuilding industry competitive. China, Korea, Japan and Europe are the four largest shipbuilders in the world.

In the latest ship order wave, the orders for 10,000-TEU ships have increased obviously, said Mr Wang. As to the first half of 2007, a cumulative total of US$51.2 billion had been invested in new vessels, 114 of which are 10,000-TEU ships or above. According to French shipping consultancy, Alphaliner, orders for such ships will surpass 150 by the end of this year.

The shipping consultancy's statistics show, from the third quarter of this year to 2011, the number of 10,000-TEU ships will increase from 6 to 152. These ships will mainly be deployed on Far East-Europe lines since volume on these trade lanes is expected to grow.

Commenting on the question of overcapacity, Mr Wang said that world trade will grow 6.7 to 7.4 per cent over five years, resulting in a cargo volume growth of 10 to 11 per cent, therefore supply and demand should be in balance unless there is an unforeseen disaster.