New order for shipping

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By Marcus Hand

Wednesday 21 January 2009

CHINA Classification Society general manager Chen Daoyu has predicted that the global economic downturn will create a new order for shipping.

In a remarkably idealistic view of the future, Mr Chen said, impartiality and credibility would become hot topics again, and that energy saving and environmental protection would remain the focus of the maritime community.

As shipping plunges headlong into what many are now forecasting will be a two-year rout, with more companies going to the wall, his comments raise an interesting question as to whether shipping will finally learn from its mistakes.

Certainly, at least in the near future, credibility does look like being a key issue. Lengthy charter chains with multiple parties, which know little if anything about each other, are not likely to be the flavour of the month any time soon.

Moreover, in terms of shipbuilding, those with money are unlikely to be rushing off to untried and untested greenfield or brownfield yards.

Environmental protection is being forced on the agenda, whether shipping likes it or not, and looks set to remain there. In many senses, energy saving is a part of that.

However, whether we will really see a new order in the longer term is rather more doubtful. Shipping has proved in the past to have a very short memory and when bust turns to shortage in a few years time, as it inevitably will, it is more than likely that caution will again be thrown to the wind and new boom then bust cycle will emerge.