For transportation providers understanding short-, medium- and long-term regulatory impacts on country-to-country flows is fundamental to network and fleet decisions across all transportation modes. For example, as China has grown its share of world non-bulk trade from around 11% in 2010 to about a quarter in 2023. To support this growth container shipping lines have invested in significantly larger ships. More and more freighters are being deployed to fly freight out of China. A shift to more intra-regional trade would require different capacity – smaller vessels, less planes, more trucks and provide increased opportunities for growth of rail services. Less trade overall would mean lower demand for capacity overall. Looming steep tariff increases are a legitimate cause for fear, but changes in the world trading system have been unfolding over many years. This article provides some thoughts on how to think about the impact of tariffs in the context of how supply chains have been evolving over the past 20 years.
Trade Data Service
The US imports about 60% more than it exports. All but two of the top 10 US trading partners export more to the US than they import from the US. The potential imposition of steep import tariffs by the incoming US administration aims to redress this situation and encourage more local production and increased exports. Estimating the impacts of tariffs is as complex as the underlying supply chains linked to each type of product as well as counter measures applied by trading partners. We expect to be writing a lot about this topic in the coming months. This article focuses on how the US trade imbalance has evolved and which trading partners and products are likely to see the greatest impact.
Lack of demand continues to be holding back EU industrial growth. Recent business survey data through to October show a further drop in economic sentiment, capacity utilisation and orderbook. The main factor cited by European companies limiting production output is demand and not factors such as material or labour shortages that were an issue two years ago. Trade statistics reflect this continued weakness of European industry – particularly in Germany. However, the overall gloomy picture hides strong performance in some individual markets. This article provides commentary on the latest industrial survey figures in the context of import and export developments to key markets.
The US domestic air cargo market today is about as big as it was in early 2017 – despite a boom in e-commerce. After growing at about 3.7% per year between 2012 and 2021, flown traffic has dropped by almost 20% since early 2022. The bad news is that we may see more declines in the next 18 months. The good news is that declines are likely to be more moderate. This article looks at the outlook for the US air cargo market and discusses what it means for the demand for air capacity.
Like wine, Australian seafood exporters suffered under an import ban imposed by China in on a range of Australian products back in 2020. Lobster export value and weight dropped to about 40% and 60% of previous highs. China accounted for almost 100% of Australian Crustacean exports in 2018 and 2019. News that China will again be open to Australian Lobster exporters is good news because China represents one of the most important markets worldwide and comes in time for the usual Dec-February peak in volumes. However, even without China, the export market has shown a degree of recovery and re-diversification, most notably to Hong Kong, Vietnam and Taiwan. This article looks at how destination and nature of the Australian crustacean export market over time.
While much of the focus has been on surging transpacific air cargo, Asia Pacific to Europe has performed better even if overall westbound volumes are still around 12% below January 2022 peak levels. Over the past years there have been significant changes in how air cargo moves between Asia and Europe with both the Gulf and Central Asia increasing their share of traffic and some smaller European countries seeing a surge in inbound volumes. This article discusses the changes taking place in Asia to Europe air cargo.
Australia’s economy is 12% larger today than it was in 2018. Yet Australian air cargo imports are about 8% below October 2018 peak and about 15-20% below the long-term trend. Exports are 25% below the March 2019 peak. Meanwhile, container volumes are about 6% higher. The share of total non-bulk trade has generally hovered around 30% of total trade but dropped to 26% in the most recent 12 months. However, since mid-2023, both air cargo import and export traffic have been improving. E-commerce and more capacity could lead to a recovery of inbound and a resumption of lost Chinese demand in a recovery of exports. This article discusses the outlook for Australian air cargo.
Year to date ocean and air trade from the EU is up slightly compared to last year. However, latest European Union industrial indicators provide little evidence of an imminent recovery of industrial activity. As such it is unlikely that we will see any substantial further pick up in air and ocean import and export activity. This article takes a look at latest industrial indicators for the European Union including manufacturing capacity utilisation, orderbook, inventories, production trend and expectations and factors limited further output. The analysis includes an interactive dashboard with country level data.
Low value trade accounts for about 2.5% of Chinese export trade value. Much of this is cross border e-commerce traffic and has grown by 37% in 2023 and 32% so far this year. This has been good for long haul airfreight, may not be sustainable in the long run unless platforms continue to subsidize shipping costs. This article provides an assessment based on Chinese customs statistics which contrary to US or European statistics provide information on low value trade.
This year Japan has witnessed an uptick in both air and containerised ocean trade. But things are not always as they seem, with much of this growth a consequence of the depreciation of the Japanese Yen. Nevertheless, some sectors and markets are showing real growth and changing dynamics in the world trading system may bring opportunities in the medium term. This includes semiconductors and automotive, and trade with Southeast Asia and North and Central America.