SHENZHEN (OCTOBER 14, 2015) – The outlook for US-Far East and Asia-Europe sea trade is positive, according to Mario Moreno, senior economist at IHS Maritime & Trade.

"The US to Far East Asia container trade is expected to moderately rebound over 2016-2017," said Moreno, who was speaking at the TPM Asia conference in Shenzhen. "After falling by approximately 3% this year, I'm looking at a growth of 5.4% for 2016, and 6.5% growth for 2017."

He said that this was because the Asia-Pacific region would continue to lead global growth, and that he was expecting the US dollar to begin a "slow, multi-year descent" from the second half of 2016 through to 2018.

This year would end on a five-year low, he said, given that seven of the top 10 US exports to the Far East showed a decline because of slowing economies in the region and because of an unfavourable exchange rate.

The Asia-Europe trade lane, which showed a downward trend this year because of sluggish demand and a weak Euro, is also set to improve.

"After falling approximately 3.4% in 2015, what we're looking at is a rebound of 6.5% for 2016, for a total of approximately 15.8 million TEUs," said Moreno. "My assumption here is that the Eurozone growth will improve slightly, aided by monetary stimulus and, more importantly, pent-up demand."

The Japanese yen was also expected to depreciate against the Euro during 2016, boosting demand for imports.

Meanwhile, Far East-US trade, which is forecasted by Moreno to reach an all-time high of 14.7 billion TEUs by the end of 2015, is expected to grow 7-8% over 2016-2017.

By Jeffrey Lee

Asia Cargo News