Shipping is the most important mean of transportation in the whole world.
However, shipping is also one of the oldest industries on the planet because it dates back to 5,000-4,000 B.C. when the Greeks, the Phoenicians and subsequently the Romans ruled the Mediterranean Sea.
The vast majority of commodities, raw materials and finished products is transported at sea on ocean-going vessels. The shipping industry is, in fact, in charge of transporting approximately 88% of all goods in the whole world so its role as far as international trade and international finance are concerned is absolutely monumental. This sector is so important that a severe and prolonged disruption to the major shipping routes would halt global trade while commodity prices on financial markets would collapse.
Given the strategic importance of the shipping industry, the present research will provide an introduction about the intersection of global shipping and international trade. This research will use the maritime report built by the UNCTAD in 2024. The UNCTAD belongs to the United Nations and it monitors and analyses Trade and Development around the world. Let’s dive in (pun intended).
According to the UNCTAD, the total seaborne trade is going to grow in the future, in terms of volume, by approximately 3.5%. Specifically, between the 2025 and 2029, the UNCTAD expects the total seaborne trade to increase by 2.4% while containerised trade should expand by 2.7%.
The forecast growth in seaborne trade should come from an increment in demand for bulk ships as a consequence of an expansion of the bauxite, coal, grain, iron ore and crude oil trade but also a bigger demand for containerised goods (finished products such as electronics, furniture, footwear, etc).
The UNCTAD forecast also identifies the progresses in technological equipment, infrastructure and energy transition as key drivers that will expand even further the global trade in coming years. The report highlights that potential threats to the aforementioned expansion can come from two different factors: geopolitical tensions and extreme weather conditions.
UNCTAD figures show that maritime trade volumes touched 12,292 million tons in 2023 (up by 2.4% since 2022) and global maritime trade exceeded expectations thanks to the better economic and financial market conditions.
In 2024, maritime trade in terms of ton-miles went higher by 4.2% because deep-sea vessels were sailing longer (longer-haul voyages) due to three main reasons:
I. Geopolitical disruptions in the Red Sea caused by the Houthi attacks to commercial ships. The attacks forced several ships to sail through the Cape of Good Hope
II. Low water level in the Panama canal which forced several ships to consider alternative routes in order to avoid big waiting time and disruptions at the locks
III. The war in Ukraine which continuously disrupts the flow of ships
Let’s focus on demand for seaborne trade.
The total ton-miles managed to get to 62,037 billion in 2023 (a 4.2% increment since 2022). The chart shows very clearly that, on average, the distances sailed by vessels (in terms of ton of cargo) went consistently higher since 2005: the average distance sailed was around 4,675 miles in 2000 but reached 5,186 miles in 2024. This implies that the aforementioned reasons for longer-haul voyages have only exacerbated a trend which in reality was already taking place.
So why ton-miles began incrementing back in 2000?
The answer is large maritime trade with Asian countries. The trade with Asian countries such as China, India, Indonesia, Thailand and Philippine gradually went up as these countries began to develop at a higher pace. The longer route to reach Chinese ports in the Pacific Ocean from Europe and from the US West Coast contributed to ramp up the mile per ton sailed by deep-sea vessels.
The reason ton-miles are used as a metric is because they measure how long is the voyage that 1 unit of maritime cargo, weighted in tons, sail from the loading port to the discharging port (although ton-miles are not a very precise way to measure trade flow).
Maritime trade is a by-product of international trade. The demand for ships is actually external to the shipping world because it comes from the international physical world, hence, a growth in GDP usually goes in tandem with the seaborne trade. Specifically, back in 2023, the volume of maritime trade expanded by 2.4% while the world’s GDP grew on average by 2.7%.
Overall, the trend of the relationship between GDP growth and maritime trade growth changed over the years, nevertheless, since 2006 the rapport between the two aforementioned factors followed predominantly the same pattern: global maritime trade grew and dropped at a faster rate than global GDP.
The table below ranks the type of trade by volume growth:
Back in 2023, according to the UNCTAD report, the highest growth in seaborne trade came from coal (+7.1%), liquefied petroleum gases (like propane, butane and iso-butane), iron ore (+4.4%) and LNG (+2.4%). On the other hand, containerised trade experienced a rather sluggish growth in terms of tons: +0.4%. The next chart provides a good understanding of the evolution of seaborne trade since 2017:
Since 2022, when the market bounced back from COVID, iron ore trade performed rather well but also grains and minor bulks managed to get back up. The steady rebound is a consequence of the fact that dry bulk trade is less exposed to geopolitical risk in the Red Sea because only 6% of global maritime dry bulk trade sails through the Suez Canal.
The large expansion in several emerging economies is actually keeping the dry bulk trade well sustained and consequently the need and demand for dry bulk ships. In fact, the UNCTAD forecasts that the iron ore trade, in all likelihood, will keep increasing supported by the strong demand coming from Asian steel producers. For the same reasons, minor bulk trade (grains, forestry products, metal alloys) are projected to grow as manufacturing activity picks up in developing countries driven by higher demand and a gradually bigger population.
The focus on energy trade, instead, indicates that LPG (propane, butane, iso-butane) and LNG (liquefied natural gas) experienced the highest growth rates both in 2024 and 2025 (in 2025 LNG grew by 6.2% in terms of tons and 6.6% in terms of ton-miles). The crude oil trade takes the 3rd place with ton growth by 0.7% in 2024 and 3.2% in 2025 while petroleum products went up by 1.6% and 1.9% in 2024 and 2025. Coal, however, decreased between 2024 and 2025 as numerous countries are using renewable energy to satisfy the vast majority of their electricity demand and only use coal in peak demand days to generate extra power.
The re-routing caused by the Houthi attacks forced several ships to sail through the Cape of Good Hope rather than the Red Sea and this favoured the containerised trade which thrives on economies of scale so very large quantities shipped on fewer ships. The following table focuses on the most commonly sailed routes for containerised trade:
As expected, Trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe shipping routes are by far the busiest ones as far as containerised trade is concerned:
I. The Eastbound Trans-Pacific routes have ships travelling from East Asia (Shanghai, Singapore, Ningbo-Zhoushan, Shenzhen, Hong Kong) to North America while ships travelling from North America (Los Angeles, Houston, Long Beach, New York, New Jersey) to East Asia belong to the Westbound routes
II. The Eastbound Asia-Europe routes have ships sailing from Northern European ports (Rotterdam, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Hamburg, etc) and Mediterranean ports (Athens, Valencia, Gioia Tauro, Trieste, Tanger Med, Algeciras, etc) all the way to East Asia while ships sailing through the Westbound Asia-Europe corridor move from Asian ports to Northern European and Mediterranean ports
The common destination here is obviously Asia. Asian countries tend to export several manufacturing products (particularly China) towards the West which, on the contrary, exports less towards Asia. In fact, the Eastbound Trans-Pacific and the Westbound Asia-Europe trade numbers are much higher than the others and they all have in common the same things: these vessels load cargo in Asia and discharge it in Western ports (North America, Northern Europe, Mediterranean). Lastly, the Transatlantic trade is smaller than the previous two and the Westbound tends to be slightly bigger than the Eastbound because Northern Europe and the Mediterranean exports more goods to North America than vice versa.
Several Asian countries are in the economic group of “emerging countries” and these are the economies that are exporting the most but also are growing the fastest, implying that import/export activities are particularly vibrant and consequently that a lot of vessels move back and forth from their ports.
As previously noticed, the trade routes between West and East are incredibly busy because of the flow between demand (Western countries) and supply (Eastern countries). However, when geopolitical tensions arise, the trade flow gets disrupted and deep-sea vessels are forced to sail longer in order to avoid military attacks, wars, pirates and militias. The next chart shows fairly well how the geopolitical picture can influence shipping:
The UNCTAD calculations show fairly evidently that the oil trade, and consequently crude tankers like VLCCs (Very Large Crude Carriers), Aframax or Suezmax, have been negatively impacted by disruptions in the most important maritime chokepoints. This is given by the fact that the Suez Canal and the Red Sea are incredibly important for the transportation of crude oil and petroleum products.
The chart suggests that dry bulk ships have also been affected by disruptions but in this case, along to the Suez Canal, the Black Sea is probably the most important maritime chokepoint because dry bulk ships transport predominantly iron ore and grains and a very large portion of the grain trade actually comes from Ukraine. Hence, the war between Russia and Ukraine has destabilised the flow of ships in the Black Sea region. Specifically, up to 35%-40% of global dry bulk short-sea shipping goes through the Black Sea (mainly grains) while another 6%-7% goes through the Suez Canal.
This study is divided into 4 different researches and the next one is called: “World Shipping Fleet: Structure and Composition”