[E-PORTS News] Drewry: The Shipping Industry May Benefit from the Sino-US Trade War

The shipping consultancy Drewry said the escalating trade hostility between the United States and China is bad news for the trans-Pacific container trade, but it may lead to an increase in the number of intermediate products.

The potential losers from this trade war will be those countries that supply China with raw materials and semi-finished products and then export the finished products to the United States.

Drewry explained that as China uses some of its exports for re-export, the United States itself may also be affected.

China’s manufacturing capacity has developed to such an extent that it needs almost no input from other countries to support its exports, which may limit the damage from the trade war.

Drewry pointed out that China’s occupation of production is partly responsible for the slowdown in global trade in the past few years. China’s growing self-sufficiency has eased people’s worries about the spillover effect of the trade war on global container flows.

“This should be an isolated incident, with the trans-Pacific region bearing the brunt, to some extent compensated by trade transfer.”

However, Drewry explained that this does not mean the end of China’s export advantage.

“Although we expect China’s market share in containers exported to the United States to decline, the sheer size of China’s export means that it cannot be replaced overnight.” Last year, measured by bilateral trade, China accounted for about a third of U.S. manufactured goods imports, twice as much as the rest of East Asia.”

Drewry concluded that with the development of new trade links, some short-term chaos is expected in the container market. However, if the demand level can be maintained, further dispersion of production will boost the demand for shipping.

“For the foreseeable future, China will remain a global container export center, albeit on a smaller scale.”

德鲁里：航运业从中美贸易战中获益

航运咨询公司德鲁里表示，美国和中国之间不断升级的贸易敌对状态，对跨太平洋集装箱贸易是个坏消息，但也应该会导致中间产品的数量增加。

这场贸易战的潜在输家，将是那些向中国提供原材料和半成品、然后再将成品出口到美国的国家。该咨询公司解释称，随着中国将部分出口用于再出口，美国自身也可能受到影响。

中国的制造能力发展到几乎不需要来自世界其它地区的投入就能支撑其出口的程度，这应该会限制附带的损害。

德鲁里指出，中国对生产的占用，是过去几年世界贸易放缓的部分原因。中国日益增长的自给自足，减轻了人们对贸易战对全球集装箱流动溢出效应的担忧。

“这应该是一个相当孤立的事件，跨太平洋地区首当其冲，在一定程度上得到了贸易转移的补偿。”

然而，Drewry解释说，这并不意味着中国出口优势的终结。

“尽管我们确实预计，中国在出口到美国的集装箱方面的市场份额将有所下降，但中国出口机器的庞大规模意味着，它不可能在一夜之间被取代。”去年，以双边贸易衡量，中国占美国制成品进口总额的约三分之一，是东亚其它国家总和的两倍。”

德鲁里总结说，随着新的贸易联系的发展，预计集装箱市场会出现一些短期的混乱，但如果需求水平能够维持下去，生产的进一步分散将提振对航运的需求。

“在可预见的未来，中国仍将是全球集装箱出口中心，尽管规模略小。”