Shipping Industry

Shipping Industry

Introduction

Shipping Industry, the industry devoted to moving goods or passengers by water. Passenger operations have been a major component of shipping, but air travel has seriously limited this aspect of the industry. The enormous increase, however, in certain kinds of cargo, for example, petroleum, has more than made up for the loss of passenger traffic. Although raw materials such as mineral ores, coal, lumber, grain, and other foodstuffs supply a vast and still growing volume of cargo, the transportation of manufactured goods has increased rapidly since World War II.

|Insert the missing words: |

|Shipping Industry is the industry devoted to moving _________ or passengers by water. Passenger operations have been a major component of|

|____________, but air travel has seriously limited this aspect of the industry. The enormous increase, however, in certain kinds of |

|cargo, for example, petroleum, has more than made up __________ the loss of passenger traffic. Although _________ materials such as |

|mineral ores, coal, lumber, grain, and other foodstuffs supply a vast and still growing volume of cargo, the transportation of |

|___________ goods has increased rapidly since World War II. |

History

Commercial shipping began perhaps with the activities of the Phoenician merchants who operated their own vessels, transporting goods in the Mediterranean. The practices they developed were adopted by the merchants of ancient Greece and Rome and were continued by the maritime powers through the Middle Ages to modern times. The Venetians, from 1300 to 1500, owned a huge merchant fleet that served the interests of the merchant traders and the city-state exclusively. From 1600 to 1650 the Dutch ranked first in shipping activity,...