Maersk Plan for 2016

Soren Skou, CEO of Maersk Line is anticipating the increase of consolidation in the shipping industry in a bid to cope with the fall in freight rates, caused by the supply-demand imbalance, according to gCaptain.

Mr Skou has said that global container trade is likely to match global economic growth by 2016, on the back of the IMF’s prediction that the world economy would grow by 3.6% in 2016.

Bloomberg previously refuted this claim, reporting that the world economy is growing much slower than the IMF’s prediction of 3.6%.

Nils Anderson, CEO of Maersk, also recently said: “We believe that global growth is slowing down. Trade is currently significantly weaker than it normally would be under the growth forecasts we see.

“We conduct a string of our own macroeconomic forecasts and we see less growth — particularly in developing nations, but perhaps also in Europe — than other people expect in 2015. [For 2016], we’re a little bit more pessimistic than most forecasters.”

Consolidation is looking set to become a trend for the entire container shipping industry, since overcapacity is pushing down freight rates, and carriers strive to stay competitive.

Maersk has decided to deal with overcapacity by cutting out capacity on key routes in an effort to hold onto its 15% global market share.

Drewry believe that Maersk will lead the way in responding to industry challenges, and predicts that other carriers will follow the world’s largest liner.