1. Introduction
According to the OECD (2012) merchant shipping activities remain the pillar of global trade, with more than 80% of international cargo transported via sea. Throughout history, maritime activities have played a vital role in shaping the world, from fishing, to the transport of people during the age of discovery, as well as global trade. With world trade growth being the core driving force behind maritime trade, other factors include; institutional and technological factors, freedom of trade, as well as China’s participation in the global economy (World Ocean Review n.d.). As shipping is a derived demand, developments in maritime transport are thus shaped by global macroeconomic trends. The biggest problem in shipping is the ability to forecast long term freight rates, and current tools such as generalized autoagressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) are often aimed at short term correlation. GARCH is an approach which helps describe market volatility (Investopedia n.d.). Freight rates essentially drive the shipping industry in terms of fleet size, and are often a good indication of the strength or weakness of the shipping market. The volatile state of the current market means the accurate need for forecasting and keeping up to date with trends is imperative. This report aims to provide an overview of current trends in merchant shipping.
2. Ownership
2.1 Flags of convenience and the largest ship owning countries Panama - with a population of just
In trade routes and otherwise greed led to violence. This was demonstrated through slavery, piracy, and control of ivory and opium. African slavery began from greed; Europeans needed labor to fuel their large trading productions and manufacturing of the traded goods. Mesoamerican slavery and destruction was caused by the Spanish conquistadors in their infamous quest for gold, god, and glory. Through greed the conquistadors decimated an entire civilization to obtain their gold. However the British and Dutch reaped many economic benefits of this perhaps even without knowledge of where their wealth had come from. Piracy, also fueled by greed, began as small bands, but eventually transformed into large companies of corporate raiders. The
From 120 BCE to the 16th century, trade was a remarkable part of the Eastern Hemisphere. It played a vital role in the kingdoms and city-states that made up all of what the 21st century calls Europe, Asia, and Africa. Trade was critically important in this time period because of the diverse climate that was scattered all across the continent. Due to the climate, every location had different resources that were provided by nature. Without specific resources, specific goods could not be manufactured. Not only that, but since technology was not as advanced as it is now, specific products were not able to exist in areas. The only way to obtain those products was to trade. Two of the many routes that a merchant could use to trade were the Silk Road and the Sea Roads along the Indian Ocean. Of those two roads, the Indian trade route had the most positive impact around the world. It facilitated the trading of mass goods since rather than using animals to transport goods, they used boats. It also provided a type of wind known as Monsoon wind that merchants could benefit from. Finally, the Indian Ocean trade route stretched out at a greater distance than the silk road, which impacted the goods that could be traded. Overall, the Indian Ocean trade route had the best impact in the Eastern Hemisphere and even the world.
While the Indian Ocean and Silk Road were different as trade networks with respect to the spread of Religion and the process of travel, they were similar in terms of the spread of disease through trade.
The change before the seventeenth century with Africans was significant. They were seen differently, developing racism, especially during the Trans-Atlantic Trade. Many events contributed continuity of the labor systems, such as the South Atlantic System and Triangle Trade system. The labor systems changed significantly within the West Indies and the Southern Colonies due to this trade. Slavery made up a large part of the social development of these areas due to the massive amount of land work.
In the beginning of Christianity, trade was considered sinful, while the Muslims thought trade was a lesson of appreciation and hard work. Christians had a strongly negative attitude towards the interaction between trade and merchants. Islamic people, however, had various different opinions on trade in comparison to the Christian religion. However, over time, the thoughts on trade and merchants shifted to a more negative point of view from both religions. The opinions from these religions were opposite at the beginning of time, but they eventually fused into one overall thought and opinion by the 16th century.
We as a world together have been through a lot of changes and made a lot of advances over the past couple of centuries. Many have argued about the outcome of the European expansion on the Americas. Some people feel that the Europeans had both a positive and negative impact on the expansion; however, the negative impact gave a devastating result, which would continue to change history for almost four hundred years. The Europeans were manipulative towards to indigenous people of the Americas. They exploited them, using them as their personal slaves. Most importantly, they silently murdered the Natives by introducing them to diseases such as the measles and smallpox. Consequently, a small pox epidemic was caused, which resulted in the
From 650 CE to 1750 CE, there were many changes and continuities in the commerce of the Indian Ocean region. One major continuity in the commerce of the Indian Ocean was the emergence and use of the same trade routes for both imports and exports of goods such as gold and ivory. One major change was how the commerce of the Indian Ocean prospered economically. The commerce of the Indian Ocean developed rapidly, and the trade incorporated places such as East Africa, the Persian Gulf, Red Sea and India. Another major change was the increased involvement of the Europeans in the Indian Ocean commerce shortly after discovering it.
There were many changes and continuities in the Indian ocean trade routes from the classical to the post classic time period. The trade along the Indian Ocean spread culture, religion, technology, crops, and other goods. This diffusion of goods, technology, and religion along the Indian Ocean trade routes was very similar to the diffusion of European and Native American goods, technology, and religion during the 15th-17th centuries in the Americas, often known as the age of exploration. This is because along the India indian ocean during the post classical period, buddhism and hinduism spread to Africa and China and Islam spread into India. From India, many goods including cotton, spices, black pepper, ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, nutmeg,
As the British North American colonies began to develop, the Trans-Atlantic trade route started to thrive. The small farmers in the West Indies, and the southern colonies began cultivating the land and growing newly found crops. These new crops were in high demand in Europe as they seen as luxury items. The small farmers could not meet the demands for the crops, causing a change in the labor systems. This change introduced the use of indentured servitude and slavery to the American colonies.
The movement of peoples form the old world to the new world happened between 1600-1900. Men and women around the world at this time were being transported to various places for various reasons. Some were involuntary, and on other occasions it was voluntary. The voluntary people are called free settlers and went too another county at their own will because of conflict in the country or like in Britain there was a lot of crime back then and people wanted to get away form it. Involuntary people were the prisoners and had to go even if they didn’t want to like in Britain they were sent to Australia because the prisons were filing up too much and they had nowhere to keep them so they had to transport them. The movements throughout this time
BHP Billiton is the world’s top producers of major commodities. China, as BHP Billiton’s largest export market, demand strongly influences the BHP Billiton’s operation (Western Australian Iron Ore Industry Profile 2015). According to the annual report of BHP Billiton (2015), China brought about 36.6% revenue in the amount of total export revenue for BHP Billiton, among the largest product is Iron Ore, which was 66% in 2015. Meanwhile, the forecast of iron ore will continue to increase production. However, Chinese steel consumption may growth slow next few years (shows in figure 1) because the real estate industry decline (Mark 2015). Therefore, oversupply and weaker demand may create the fluctuations in commodity prices which related to commodity risk.
International trade is defined as trade between two or more partners from different countries in the exchange of goods and services. In order to understand International trade, we need to first know and understand what trade is, which is the buying and selling of products between different countries. International Trade simply is globalization of the world and enables countries to obtain products and services from other countries effortlessly and expediently.
In this paper I argue how Commodities and Commerce had an impact on the Atlantic World. From the development of the early Atlantic World, or how commerce and commodities impact the relationships between diverse groups of people. Or how they impacted relationships between people and geographic space in the early Atlantic World.
The international trade of goods across the world accounts for approximately 60% of the world Gross Domestic Product (The World Bank, 2014). A great proportion of goods transactions occur every second. The primary question is whether international trade benefits a country as an entirety, and, if so, why would a country implement protective trade policies to restrict particular exports? To address this question, this essay aims to explore the impact of trade on various economic stakeholders, including consumers, producers, labour and government and, furthermore, will compare models and theories with reality to ascertain the true winner/ loser in the international trade market.
Like stated above, to find the ratio that is more beneficial between currencies, there are numerous factors to take notice of. Each factor plays a role in the trading relationship between countries. Although there is no order or weight to these factors, each part represents a piece of the formula in deriving the exchange rate.