Seaborne Trade Accounts for 77% of Total World Trade

Wednesday 5 December 2007

New research from Lloyd’s MIU puts world seaborne trade at 7.5 billion tonnes or 77 per cent of total world trade measured in terms of volume (tonnes). Lloyd’s MIU estimates that foreign overland trade accounts for 16 per cent of world trade with international pipeline trade calculated at 6.7 per cent. According to the figures international air freight trade accounts for just round 0.3 per cent of total world trade by volume.

The study was conducted by analysing global foreign trade statistics for over a 1000 commodities on 19,000 country to country trade routes. Wally Mandryk Lloyd’s MIU’s Manager of Market Intelligence Services commented that the results called into question the generally held view of seaborne trade accounting for 90 per cent of world trade by volume.


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