It has often been said that Asia offers a 'lifeline' to the container shipping industry and that the growing exchanges between nations in the region can compensate for disappointing traffic movements on the main east-west routes. This is likely to be only partly true, as a significant amount of cargo that is moved on corridors like China/Japan, Malaysia/South Korea and China/Indonesia comprises raw materials, semi-processed goods and/or partially-manufactured products where the final item is consumed in Europe or North America. The notion that the intra-Asia market is decoupled from Asia/Europe, transpacific or even, for that matter, from currently strongly performing routes such as those to/from Asia and South America and Africa, is simply not true.
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