Maintaining the balance between supply and demand is tricky at the best of times. In shipping the difficulty rating is multiplied due to the long lead times between ordering and delivery. In the few years before 2008 the boom in shipbuilding was fuelled by cheap loans and a global economy found sustenance in the notional price of property in Europe and the US, with consumers borrowing money against the rising value of their homes. That boom could never have lasted and when the collapse of the banking system occurred the vessel capacity continued to grow for a couple of years longer as contracts signed months or years earlier were fulfilled.
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