Streaking ahead

摘要

The strength of the liner trades to/from the Middle East has given regional carriers the confidence to invest in new tonnage and expand their service networks. John Fossey reports. While the world's main liner trades appear to be heading for a period of slower growth, the Middle East market's robust performance of recent years looks set to continue, even though oil and gas prices, on which most of the growth has been founded, have softened recently. This is particularly the case with the trade linking the region from the Far East, where for the past three/four years, volumes have soared annually by between 25% and 30%. The same situation has been true of the Red Sea/Far East sector, with Saudi Arabia and Egypt, in particular, sucking in huge volumes of cargo from China, South Korea and the ASEAN countries. Such growth has not been lost on the local operators, with deepsea carriers, such as Dubai-managed UASC and Tehran-headquartered Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL), embarking on huge fleet expansion programmes. Meanwhile, feeder/shortsea specialists, such as Simatech, are also modernising their tonnage pools and adjusting their services to meet the demand.