Trade

Characteristics of international

Transport modes: 2

1.1 Containerization

Containerization is a method of distributing merchandise in a unitized form thereby permitting an inter-modal transports system to be evolved providing a possible combination of rail, road, canal and maritime transport. The system is long established and was in being at the turn of the century, albeit in a somewhat modified form to that which exists today. It became particularly evident in the North American coastal trade in the 1930s when the vessels were called ‘Van ships’. Today, we have the sixth generation of container ships, of 8000 TEUs, in service, operated by the Maersk line. It is likely the 8000 TEU ship, which costs around US$120 million, will dominate the Europe—Asia trade routes by 2010 as the benefits of containerization become more attractive in a large number of countries, thereby aiding the rising living standards and facilitating trade expansion.

There is no doubt that the expansion of containerization will continue beyond the millennium. By the year 2005 containerized cargo will account for some 60 per cent of all cargo moved by sea. In 1990 it was 40 per cent. The growth is emerging from two sectors: (a) the transfer from the bulk cargo division, particularly the reefer and fruit carriers and (b) organically, as the benefits of containerization through multi-modalism and logistic focus accelerate trade development.

An example of continuing growth is found in China which plans to build 16 coastal container terminals linked to the interior by dedicated rail shuttles. A further example is the growth of global transshipment. This is entirely driven by the hub and spoke system. Under this system the largest hub ports like Singapore, Hong Kong and Rotterdam rely on smaller spoke ports to feed containers into the mega-container service. An analysis of the global transshipment growth 1995—2005 is found in Table

The massive growth in world container trade in the next eight years...