VOLUMES on the trades between Asia and the US and Europe grew at a steady pace in the first six months, but in the second half they have begun to slow down.
However, for Asian exporters, there are a growing number of emerging market trades that are proving to be viable alternatives to help pick up the slack in the major consumer economies of North America and Europe.
Recently we looked at the rising strength of the Asia to South America trade, particularly to Brazil. Today in The Container Shipping Manager we will continue our series on ‘Trades to Watch’ and look at the health of the Asia-Persian Gulf market and the potential it holds for the shipping industry. The Persian Gulf nations comprise the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait.
This region is considered by some as a "rising star" in terms of shipping demand. The financial crisis also had an impact in this region, although it was largely confined to the UAE only; but how is it recovering? Let’s take a look.
If we look at the above bar graph (sorry, we can't upload the graph, editor), which depicts Asian hub ports’ first half growth, we can see that the Persian Gulf’s hub port, Jebel Ali (Dubai), has reported a growth rate of just three per cent, compared with the likes of Colombo, Busan and Port Klang, all of which recorded growth of over 20 per cent year on year.
But the story does not end here, one analyst that has been studying the trade told us recently. "Judging the attractiveness of one particular trade merely by port growth will not be sufficient enough, and can be misleading," he said.
One needs to also understand the supply and demand balance of a particular trade, what is the revenue versus cost scenario, as we did recently with the Asia-South America study.
Source : CSM, 29.09.10.
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