Maersk freight chief warns of fall in demand

The struggling container shipping industry must prepare for a new era that will see growth in demand fall to half the levels seen over the past two decades, the head of the world’s largest carrier has warned.

Søren Skou, chief executive of Maersk Line, told the Financial Times that the more downbeat outlook was not just due to a prediction of sustained weaker economic growth globally.

Instead, two trends in global trade patterns and which drove strong container demand since the 1990s are running their course. US and European "offshoring" of production to Asia was all but over and in some cases was being reversed, he said.

At the same time, containerisation – the increasing use of boxes to transport goods that had previously moved by other means – was also at an end. – (Copyright Financial Times Service 2013)