A brief overview of world trade and the container.

About 95 percent of world trade by weight or volume travels by sea, and it is difficult to imagine any other practical alternatives. World sea borne trade reached a record high of 5.88 billion tons in the year 2000, although 2001 saw a decline for the first time in 15 years. The volume of sea borne trade is directly linked to the growth of the world economy as a whole. Conversely, world trade is dependent on the world's merchant fleet, which currently stands at about 29,000 ships of more than 1000 grt. Of that number, about 70 percent are oil tankers and dry bulk carriers. Container ships make up about 10 percent of the total.

However, the container fleet shows the fastest growth of any ship type. Only 8 years ago the container fleet was about 5 percent of the total world fleet. Today about 70 percent of general cargo is containerized. It is expected that this figure will grow to 90 percent by 2010.

The world container fleet was 2,755 ships having a total carrying capacity of 5,356,650 TEU's in 2001. Today it stands at about 3,065 ships. And ships are getting larger to benefit from the economies of scale. The S-class vessels of Maersk, which can carry more than 7,000 TEU, are the largest container ships currently in operation. Vessels of over 3,000 TEU's make up 71 percent of all newbuildings.

The average age of the world fleet was 13.9 years in 2001 with almost 34 per cent of the fleet 20 years and older. General cargo vessels had the highest average age at 16.2 years, while container vessels were the youngest at 11 years.

Modern container ships carry a 40 foot container for less than 10 cents (U.S. currency) a mile (a fraction of land transportation), and are a major contributing factor to low freight payments which we all benefit from. World freight payments as a fraction of total import value are around 5 percent.

The number of containers world wide is estimated at 15.1 million. The total number of container movements (throughput) in ports worldwide is about 225.3 million TEU's.
The world growth rate for container port traffic (movements) is about 15.4 percent, and for developing economies its is about 14.5 percent (2000). The top 20 general cargo ports handle about 51 percent of all TEU movments. Container throughput in Singapore for the month of July 2002 hit 1.48 million TEU's. The total for 2002 was just under 17 million TEU's.


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Also, please feel free to read more about the history of our main products, the Queen Mary Ship, the SS United States, and the Normandie ship. Their model specifications can be found in our Ocean Liner products section.