History of Container Shipping

Modern container shipping will celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2016. Almost from the first voyage, use of this method of transport for goods grew steadily and in just five decades, container ships would carry about 60% of the value of goods shipped via sea.

In 1955, Malcom P. McLean, a trucking entrepreneur from North Carolina, USA, bought a steamship company with the idea of transporting entire truck trailers with their cargo still inside. He realized it would be much simpler and quicker to have one container that could be lifted from a vehicle directly on to a ship without first having to unload its contents.

His ideas were based on the theory that efficiency could be vastly improved through a system of “intermodalism”, in which the same container, with the same cargo, can be transported with minimum interruption via different transport modes during its journey. Containers could be moved seamlessly between ships, trucks and trains. This would simplify the whole logistical process and, eventually, implementing this idea led to a revolution in cargo transportation and international trade over the next 50 years.

Interesting Facts about International Trade

• 
  
  
• International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories.
• International trade has increased so much people talk of the ‘globalization’ of the world economy. This means that goods are sold around the world.
• The balance of world trade is tipped in favour of the world’s richest countries and companies.
• Just 200 huge multinational companies control much of world trade.
• Just five countries – the USA, Germany, Japan, France and the UK – control almost half world trade.
• The 30 richest countries control 82 percent of world trade.
• Oil tankers carry crude and refined petroleum. Supertankers can hold around 550 million kilograms of oil.
• The 49 poorest countries control just 2 percent of world trade.
• Some countries rely mainly on just one export. Ninety-five percent of Nigeria’s earnings come from oil; 75 percent of Botswana’s come from diamonds.
• Some countries such as the USA .want ‘free trade’ – that is, no restrictions on trade; other less powerful nations want tariffs (taxes on foreign goods) and quotas (agreed quantities) to protect their home industries.

Interesting Facts about Fruit Export

• The world’s most popular fruit is the tomato. More than 200 billion pounds (about 90 billion kg) of tomatoes are produced yearly, primarily by China and the U.S.
• The country that exports the most fruit to the U.S. is Mexico. Mexico also happens to be the world’s largest producer of avocados, lemons and limes.
• The world’s leading producer of kiwi fruit is not New Zealand, as many people think. It’s actually Italy, which produces  about 450 million kg of kiwi fruits a year.

Indian's Silk Export

With sericulture activities spread across 52,360 villages, the Indian silk industry is one of the largest generators of employment and foreign exchange for the country. India enjoys a unique global position in terms of producing all the commercially useful varieties of silk.

The readymade garments of silk formed the largest segment, generating around 58 per cent of the export earnings from silk, while natural silk yarn, fabrics and made-ups accounted for around 38 per cent of the silk export earnings.

The US and the UAE are the major export destinations for Indian silk goods. 

The UK, France, Italy and Germany are the other major export destinations. The segments that are exported in the silk sector include natural silk yarns, fabrics, made-ups, readymade garments, silk carpets and silk waste.  

Egyptian Cotton is Globally Renowned

Cotton is one of the most used fabrics in the whole world. Consumers from all nations and classes wear and use it in a variety of applications. Thousands of acres are devoted to its manufacturing.

Egyptian cotton, is one of the most sought-after around the world. It is considered one of the softest and most opulent cottons available today.

For many years, it was so valuable that most of the crop was shipped to European countries, and Egyptians themselves could hardly buy items made from its cloth.

However, manufacturing in Egypt has developed considerably over the last thirty years. Many textile factories have opened all over Egypt and especially in Mahla, a large Delta city south of Cairo, famous for its many factories that specialize in producing the best cotton products in Egypt.

In the 1960s and 1970s, Egypt supplied 80 per cent of the world market, but later lost market share to its US competitor, Pima cotton. Today, Egypt alone supplies 55 per cent of the world’s needs of LS and ELS cottons, while the US Pima supplies 40 per cent. Egypt and the US have a monopoly over the production and trade of LS and ELS cotton varieties. 

The World Watchmaking and Industry

   

   Despite the widespread use of smartphones and tablets, wrist watches do not lose their popularity. The Swiss Watchmaking industry leads the world in the terms of value. According to the words of d Jean-Daniel Pasche, head of the Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry, Switzeland’s watch exports will rise in 2014 after advancing at the slowest pace in four years in 2013 due to a drop in Chinese demand. China is, in fact, the market leader in this respect, producing 663 million watches in 2012. It is the world’s largest exporter of finished watches, followed by Hong Kong, which produced 354 million. Switzerland comes in third place. However, the opposite is true when it comes to value, where Switzerland takes the lead, producing 95% of all watches sold at prices of over 1,000 francs.

Export and Shipping Industry

Almost 90 percent of everything we buy arrives via ship. Find out amazing facts about shipping industry. 

- Shipping is so big in fact that it constitutes roughly 90 percent of the world's trade.
- Compared to the energy expended moving goods by plane or truck, shipping is far less damaging in terms of greenhouse gases released.
- A container ship travels the equivalent of three-quarters of the way to the moon and back in one year during its regular travel across the oceans.
- There are approximately 55,000 merchant ships carrying cargo around the world.
- As of this moment there are roughly 20 million containers crossing the world.
- Shipping is cheap. It’s so cheap in fact, that rather than fillet its own fish, Scotland can send its cod 10,000 miles across the ocean to China to be filleted, and then sent back for less than the price of doing it themselves.