Report: 2007 global freight forwarding growth slowest in 4 years

Growth in the global freight forwarding market slowed to its lowest rate in four years during 2007, a trend that will be repeated for this year, according to a new report from Transport Intelligence (Ti), a United Kingdom-based analyst.

The report, Global Freight Forwarding 2008, congratulated the market for its resilience amid the current worldwide economic malaise and identified that the sea freight market considerably outperformed its air counterpart.

Ti said annual air freight forwarding growth dropped by almost five percentage points to 7.5 percent, which was attributed to lower volumes due to the economic slowdown and the migration of some traffic to cheaper sea freight, which returned growth of 14.3 percent in 2007.

China's trade continued to develop at a very strong pace and was one of the key drivers of that growth (in the sea freight market). U.S. exports went some way towards mitigating weakness in that market's imports, and throughout the year, Asia Pacific-Europe trade volumes grew markedly, Ti said.

Europe and Asia Pacific were said to be the best performing markets, but overall growth was dragged down by North America, specifically the United States, which was negatively impacted by the credit crunch and downturn in consumer confidence.

It is unlikely that in 2008 such high levels of growth will be repeated, said John Manners-Bell, Ti's chief executive officer in a less than upbeat assessment of industry prospects. There are signs that the European economy has started to weaken in line with the U.S. and this will have a major impact on the strength of the market.

Source: American Shipper