Shedding light
where darkness reigns
where darkness reigns
6 August 2016
You thought global trade was in a bad shape? Hold tight, because things could get much worse
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Global trade is contracting, for cyclical and structural economic reasons. Cyclical, as most of the developed economies have not completely recovered from the 2008/9 crisis. Structural, as the limits of the global outsourcing model have been reached, mainly because the Chinese economic model has shifted from export-led growth towards production for domestic consumption. As a […]
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21 July 2016
Shipping’s carbon emissions were quite effectively branded “the elephant in the room” last year during the negotiations that led to the Paris Climate Agreement. Are shipping emissions indeed the elephant in the room, or rather another kind of animal? Perhaps an ostrich that puts its head in the sand? A parrot that repeats phrases that […]
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13 July 2016
Silky OBOR is in town; what now?
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OBOR, it could have been the name of the coolest hip hop star in town. New Silk Roads aka OBOR, something like that. The astounding acronym hides a mysterious conceptual subtlety that intellectuals and policy-makers have only started to grapple with. What is OBOR: a strategy, an initiative, a proposal? What does it want: harmony, […]
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8 July 2016
Stop the focus on pharaonic infrastructure investments, pay more attention to creating economic value; that was in essence the message of an important report that was released last week in the Netherlands. Important, because it could herald the end of the government doctrine that channelled a lot of public money and political energy into an […]
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27 June 2016
The demise of London as global maritime capital has often been announced, but has never actually really happened. This time things might be different: by voting to leave the European Union the Brits might have started single-handedly the dismantling of their maritime cluster. When looking at successful maritime clusters, we notice three essential traits: they […]
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21 June 2016
Many ports these days behave like teenagers: they think they are adults, but they still live in their parents’ house and often act irresponsibly, while trying to be cool. This needs to stop: ports either need to grow up, or stop acting like kids. More and more ports become “corporatised”. So the port is redefined […]
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12 June 2016
Shipping suffers from two plagues: overcapacity and its perceived incapacity to reduce emissions. Both are linked to the inherent nature of shipping – a truly global activity – and the difficulty to reach truly global agreements. Difficult because there are always nations that think that their shipping companies are better off unregulated. This leads to […]
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7 June 2016
What will the future of global trade look like and what does that mean for shipping and ports? When thinking of the future, we often suffer from a technology bias. We think that cars will fly, that ships will be autonomous and that big data will change everything. The future of global trade could indeed […]
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30 May 2016
One can easily be bitter about short sea shipping. Despite laudable intentions and pockets full of money, short sea shipping has never really fulfilled the expectations. How many “motorways” of the sea exist that become unused old dirt roads as soon as the subsidy stops? Quite a few. At the core of this disillusion is […]
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