The global container market has grown 8% since 2019, but growth has been "very uneven," according to a new BIMCO analysis.
In its "Shipping Number of the Week" report, Niels Rasmussen, chief shipping analyst at BIMCO, examined the rise in container trade imbalances, which has been driven by faster export growth from East & Southeast Asia compared with all other regions except Sub-Saharan Africa.
"Since 2019, the global container market has grown 8%, ending at 183.2 million TEU in 2024, according to Container Trade Statistics. However, growth has been very uneven and regional imbalances between exports and imports have increased by 33%," Rasmussen said.
In 2019, regional imbalances totalled 58.8 million TEU, equal to 52% of inter-regional trade, but grew to 84.9 million TEU and 70% in 2024.
BIMCO, one of the largest international shipping associations representing shipowners, said in absolute terms, the imbalance in the East & Southeast Asia region remained the largest at 42.4 million, up from 29.4 million TEU in 2019.
In other terms, the region exported 3 TEU for every TEU imported in 2024.
"The increase in trade imbalances has been driven by faster export growth from East & Southeast Asia compared with all other regions except Sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, exports from the Asian region have grown by 10.9m TEU, whereas the total inter-regional market has grown by only 9.5m TEU since 2019," Rasmussen said.
In addition, East & Southeast Asian imports were 9% lower in 2024 than in 2019, which contributed to a contraction in exports, especially from Europe & Mediterranean and North America regions.
BIMCO noted that historically, the relative imbalance has been the largest in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.
In 2024, however, the imbalance in North America was the largest. North America imported 2.5 TEU for every TEU exported. In Sub-Saharan Africa, imports were 2.3 times larger than exports.
The relative imbalance also grew in the Europe & Mediterranean and South & Central America regions but reduced in Oceania, Sub-Saharan Africa and Indian Subcontinent & Middle East regions.
The analysis said overall inter-regional trade balances remained within a 48-53% band between 2012 and 2020. It started climbing in 2021 as exports from East & Southeast Asia grew 11%. In 2024, those regions' exports ended 21% higher than in 2019, whereas the total inter-regional market grew only 8% in the same period.
"Imbalances within regions, and specific imbalances for specific container sizes and types, dictate liner operators' cost for positioning empty containers. But the increasing regional imbalances point to a larger and potentially more costly problem," Rasmussen said.
"To accommodate growing head-haul trades, liner operators must deploy ever more and/or larger ships only to see a relatively smaller revenue potential in the back-haul trades."
