China's 'Belt and Road' initiative wins good reviews at
Shenzhen's TPM conference

CHINA's "Belt and Road" scheme won mostly good reviews at October's TPM conference in Shenzhen - at least for its prospects of success despite misgivings.
The Beijing initiative that is likely to loom large in the Communist Party's 2016-20 Five-Year Plan, involves building land and sea infrastructure from China to Europe through central and south Asia as well as in Africa.
As outlined, it will involve intergovernmental financing as well as public-private partnerships to build and/or upgrade ports, roads, bridges and railways to build a New Silk Road.  >More
 

Intra-Asia container trades Drewry attempts to demistify
the market

The current commonly held view is that the so-called "intra-Asian" trade encompasses container business moving between Saudi Arabia and New Zealand on an east/west axis, writes the editor of Container Forecaster, Neil Dekker. This is confusing to say the least since any conclusions drawn from a region of this size can only be rather vague or diluted.
Many ocean carriers include for example, the Mid-East and Australasia within their definition of the intra-Asia trade, but these routes are governed by different supply/demand factors and in Drewry's opinion the trade between Asia and the Mid-East has become a major east/west route in its own right.  >More
 

TPM reflections: Pros and con of impact of alliances on
trade routes

IF there was anything one could take-away from October's TPM conference in Shenzhen it was that mega-alliances that now dominate the trade lanes worldwide, have had a largely positive effect of the world's most important trade lane.
While conceding that there needs be checks and balances, one important shipper - Electrolux - said the usual shipper paranoia about carrier collusion was subsiding, though the fever still ran high among regulators.
Said NYK chief executive Jeremy Nixon: "The EU still has a mindset of collusion. That's unfortunate, it hasn't been like that for years, but smoke-filled rooms still permeates their thinking.'  >More
 

Deep sea container trades clock Up TEU-miles increasingly
on intra-Asian routes

Container trade has grown firmly over the last decade, write Clarkson analysts in the Shipping Herald, adding that much of this expansion has been driven by trade on the intra-Asian network.
However, when analysing this growth of terms of TEU-miles, global expansion has been fairly evenly spread between various routes, with the deep sea mainlane trades in particular punching above their weight in terms of TEU-mile growth.
In 2005 container trade totalled 105 million TEU, and this year it is expected to reach 179 million TEU. The mainlane routes, which had historically represented a major growth area of container trade, have expanded at a relatively modest rate in the last decade, at a rate of three per cent per annum. >More