2025-04-10
The global shipping industry, as the cornerstone of international trade, is facing unprecedented opportunities and challenges for development. The industry is also experiencing the profound impact brought by the COVID-19, geopolitical conflicts, green transformation and technological change. In the future, the shipping industry will continue to seek balance among these complex and ever-changing factors, exploring new growth points and solutions. Faced with these challenges, the shipping industry must constantly innovate and adapt to maintain its competitiveness and sustainability in global trade.
1、 Development Trends in the Shipping Industry
（1） The global shipping industry is still in the stage of industrial restructuring
Due to the rise of trade protectionism, the promotion of re industrialization strategies by developed economies, and the intensification of global geopolitical conflicts, the development trend of the shipping industry is being affected, and the global shipping industry chain is being restructured. Regional free trade agreements are accelerating, with an explosive increase in the number of reported and signed regional trade agreements to the WTO. Non developed economies such as Latin America and Africa have made significant investments to become emerging manufacturing bases, and industrial transfer has also driven rapid growth in the number of shipping goods in emerging markets. The latest forecast from the International Monetary Fund shows that the economic growth value of emerging economies will reach 4.2% in 2024, and is expected to remain at 3.9% in 2029. The growth rate of developed economies is roughly 1.8%.
（2） Significant changes have occurred in the cargo structure of the global shipping market
Another noteworthy situation is that the proportion of global maritime trade in oil products and large and medium bulk cargo is declining, while the expansion of business in automobile and liquefied gas transportation is quite evident. From the perspective of the development of different types of goods, with the advancement of global low-carbon and environmental protection requirements, the proportion of transportation volume of oil products and large and medium bulk cargo is bound to significantly decline.
（3） China's port throughput continues to grow
The changes in China's port throughput will also bring about new changes in this industry. Short term trade can be said to have rebounded, which has also driven the sustained growth of global port cargo throughput. Among them, the performance of Chinese ports is still quite impressive. From January to September 2024, the increase in foreign trade cargo throughput and container throughput of Chinese ports was 7.6% and 7.7% respectively, indicating a good development trend.
（4） AI big model technology widely applied to port and shipping industry
China COSCO Shipping Group is developing Hi dolphin, while China Merchants Shipping uses shippingGPT, as well as Ark TaaS from Shandong Port and PortGPT from Tianjin Port. The application of these AI modeling technologies directly promotes the improvement of data analysis capabilities and enhances decision-making efficiency. More importantly, it can also effectively optimize the customer experience. Shanghai Maritime University has launched the construction of the Future Ocean Laboratory and will soon release AI products including maritime intelligent agents and related vertical models.
（5） Artificial intelligence empowers the intelligent development of ships
On the one hand, the integration of artificial intelligence has brought unprecedented changes to the shipbuilding industry, empowering it through intelligent design, manufacturing, and management. Artificial intelligence technology can also optimize ship design, including improving design accuracy and efficiency, and automating production processes with robots
