No Buy, No Sell
A mere six months ago soaring energy prices threatened the economies of world-wide trade. An emerging realization that the high cost of energy, resulting in steeper transport fees would have its deleterious effect on the economy related to transporting foods, fuels, consumer products of all kinds, dampening down future prospects in the growth potential of countries dependent on trade for their growing economies.Cheaper production costs, lower wages, gave the emerging economies of China and India and other Asian countries the upper hand in providing consumer commodities at a price that the world approved of. But then the spectre of disruption in the practical utility of exporting such goods because of ever-rising energy costs, along with a growing reluctance on the part of importers becoming more aware of climate change threatened international trade.
Who might have anticipated that only a few short months afterward, energy prices would plunge to the nether depths of resource extraction versus remuneration, along with the global collapse of the world economy? In essence, another route entirely, but the end result quite the same; the sad end - for the time being - of booming international trade and export.
Where once shipping and transport was threatened by the prospect of sky-high energy costs, and the growing awareness of importers of the cost to the environment of accessing goods and foodstuffs from far-off resources, now shipping and transport has been impacted by lack of trade as a result of the faltering world economy shaking the foundations of export-import viability.
National economies have been placed in dire straits, there is far less fluidity, countries are only too aware of the need to draw in their purse strings. Consumers are no longer so wholly dedicated to the wholesale consumption that so latterly marked the purpose of a capitalist society. Who might have imagined the abrupt and volatile disruption to international trade?
Shipping companies are now so desperate for a return to some kind of activity and profitability that they're offering to ship at zero rates from Asia to Europe. "We have seen trade activity fall off a cliff. Asia-Europe is an unmitigated disaster", according to a broker at Transport Trackers in Hong Kong.
Business-desperate shippers are desperately waiving container fees, opting now only for minimal "bunker" costs. The core trade of finished industrial goods, representing the lifeblood of the world economy is in free-fall. The financial collapse of the U.S. and European markets has dramatically diminished imports in the depressed markets of those countries.
Korea, Taiwan, Japan and China have seen an unprecedented contraction in their export trade, notably in steel, electronics and textiles. Ships no longer plying the high seas, sit idly in rows outside Singapore's harbour, temporarily mothballed. Outbound traffic from the world's transport ports are in complete slump as demand has dried to an extent not seen in previous memory.
And then, there is Somalia. How can those self-respecting, self-availing, innovatively creative entrepreneurs face the future without the ongoing opportunity to ply their trade? Somalia's enterprising pirate community may soon face their own collapsed economy due to the growing paucity of opportunities to hijack ships for ransom.
What is this world coming to?
Labels: Economy, Environment, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, January 17, 2009
<< Home