Our models suggest that North Europe will have had an annual growth rate of nearly two per cent for imports while exports grow nearly seven per cent in 2017, with most of the growth in the first half of the year. They also suggest that the first half of 2018 will grow at a faster pace, up 4.4 per cent and 3.7 per cent respectively compared to volumes in the same period last year. This is virtually the same as we projected last month. We can now safely say that the EU is out

Going into 2018 the container shipping industry faces a fundamental problem: too many large vessels. The carriers have invested heavily in “megaships” to reduce slot costs and emissions, and continue to take delivery of ever-larger examples. The oversupply of vessels overall and large vessels in specific creates a double-edged problem: -Oversupply has depressed rates and profitability in an era of slow trade growth, despite partial recoveries by some carriers in some trades.