Global trade: structural shifts - FT.com

ft.com ^ | 3-2-2016 | Shawn Donnan

[Citizen Zed]

The fall in traffic could signal a permanent shift in the fundamentals driving globalisation.

The Port of Charleston spent most of the early 2000s enjoying double-digit growth as an accelerating wave of globalisation — fuelled by a rising China and a US consumer boom — brought robust volumes of cargo into the seaport.

But those days are long gone. Jim Newsome, chief executive of the South Carolina Ports Authority, says he would be happy with 3 per cent growth in Charleston this year, a goal he concedes may be too ambitious. In January, container traffic at the port fell 5.1 per cent versus the same month of 2015, and the strong dollar is causing problems for US exporters.

“Most of the exporters that I talk to are just not doing the same business that they were a year ago,” he says.

The story is repeated and amplified far beyond Charleston. Last year saw the biggest collapse in the value of goods traded around the world since 2009 — when the impact of the global financial crisis was at its worst. Major ports such as Hamburg and Singapore have also reported slowing growth and even declining volumes. Barring a spectacular turnround in the global economy, the subpar performance is likely to be repeated in 2016, making it the fifth straight year of lacklustre growth in global trade, a pattern not seen since the doldrums of the 1970s. “It has been a very long time since trade . . . has grown this weakly,” says Robert Koopman, chief economist at the World Trade Organisation.

[Citizen Zed]

I wonder if cheap oil will turn it around?