Samudera Shipping Line grew out of the short-sea shipping activities of its parent Samudera Indonesia and was listed on the Singapore stock exchange as a separate company in 1997. Although the line, in common with most other carriers, saw cargo volumes and freight rates decline in 2009, it still handled 1.26 million TEU and gen-erated revenues of US$330 million.

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The Panama and Suez Canals were both built to reduce sailing times on major east-west trade routes. The table below shows that while there are significant differences between the two canals, they share many essential similarities.

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Official data showed that German exports in 2009 amounted to US$1.1 trillion, con-firming that China – with exports last year of US$1.2 trillion – had overtaken Ger-many as the world’s leading exporter. The chart below shows the evolution of monthly exports during 2009 (in billions of US dollars) for the top five exporting nations. These five countries between them currently account for some 35% of total
world exports.

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As slot utilization on vessels leaving Asia for Europe and the USA increased in the months leading up to Chinese New Year and the lines found it possible to raise freight rates, it was initially assumed that the signs of improving demand were too uncertain for the lines to risk re-deploying idle tonnage. Then it was said that the lines were holding off because they wanted to see whether the upturn in demand would continue after Chinese New Year.

Tom Kim, head of Asia transportation research at Goldman Sachs, continues to take a positive view of the container shipping business. At a recent shipping conference in Singapore he stated the bank’s view that the container lines have ‘passed the eye of the storm’ and that there should now be a steady improvement in global market conditions.

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