For the first time in the 13 years Colography Group has tracked international shipping rates, ocean shipping will grow faster than air shipping in 2003, the research firm predicts.
For the first time in the 13 years Colography Group has tracked international shipping rates, ocean shipping will grow faster than air shipping in 2003, the research firm predicts.
Ocean freight is by far the dominant mode in international shipping, accounting for about 99 percent of all tonnage. But a far higher percentage of freight by value moves by air—about 39 percent, based on Colography Group projections.
The firm expects worldwide airfreight shipments will climb by about 2 percent this year. Global ocean shipping will grow by about 4.9 percent, according to the projections.
Total international shipping will amount to about 11 trillion pounds, says the forecast, with 10.98 trillion pounds moving by ocean and the balance, about 52 billion pounds,moving in the air. The firm projects that the value of all goods shipped internationally in 2003 will reach US$5.9 trillion, a 4.3-percent increase from 2002 levels. Of that, US$2.3 trillion will move by air, a 4.4-percent gain from 2002 levels, and US$3.6 trillion will move via sea, a 4.3-percent increase. The Colography study measures goods moving only in international commerce and excludes domestic services.
The slower aircargo growth reflects the continued slump among businesses that make the greatest use of air, such as those producing semiconductors, electronics and telecommunications equipment, says Ted Scherck, president of the Colography Group. He adds that the decline in the size and weight of the average air shipment could contribute to the slowing of air cargo's tonnage growth. That's reflected in the finding that revenue growth is outpacing tonnage growth for air-cargo carriers.
Among the many findings in the Colography Group's report, Global Cargo Market Projections for 2003:
The value of each pound of global airfreight will rise in 2003 by 2.3 percent. By contrast, the value of each pound of global sea freight will decline by 0.7 percent.
Eastern Europe will report the fastest growth rate in air export tonnage at 10.2 percent, followed by Central America, with a projected 7.1-percent growth rate.
Western Europe, North and South America, and Australia/Oceania will lag the world average of 2 percent.
Asia will only exceed the average by a slight margin, with 2.2-percent growth.
An estimated 48.8 percent of all global air tonnage will be shipped on an intra-regional basis in 2003, virtually unchanged from 2002 levels.
RJW Logistics Group, a logistics solutions provider (LSP) for consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands, has received a “strategic investment” from Boston-based private equity firm Berkshire partners, and now plans to drive future innovations and expand its geographic reach, the Woodridge, Illinois-based company said Tuesday.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but the company said that CEO Kevin Williamson and other members of RJW management will continue to be “significant investors” in the company, while private equity firm Mason Wells, which invested in RJW in 2019, will maintain a minority investment position.
RJW is an asset-based transportation, logistics, and warehousing provider, operating more than 7.3 million square feet of consolidation warehouse space in the transportation hubs of Chicago and Dallas and employing 1,900 people. RJW says it partners with over 850 CPG brands and delivers to more than 180 retailers nationwide. According to the company, its retail logistics solutions save cost, improve visibility, and achieve industry-leading On-Time, In-Full (OTIF) performance. Those improvements drive increased in-stock rates and sales, benefiting both CPG brands and their retailer partners, the firm says.
"After several years of mitigating inflation, disruption, supply shocks, conflicts, and uncertainty, we are currently in a relative period of calm," John Paitek, vice president, GEP, said in a release. "But it is very much the calm before the coming storm. This report provides procurement and supply chain leaders with a prescriptive guide to weathering the gale force headwinds of protectionism, tariffs, trade wars, regulatory pressures, uncertainty, and the AI revolution that we will face in 2025."
A report from the company released today offers predictions and strategies for the upcoming year, organized into six major predictions in GEP’s “Outlook 2025: Procurement & Supply Chain” report.
Advanced AI agents will play a key role in demand forecasting, risk monitoring, and supply chain optimization, shifting procurement's mandate from tactical to strategic. Companies should invest in the technology now to to streamline processes and enhance decision-making.
Expanded value metrics will drive decisions, as success will be measured by resilience, sustainability, and compliance… not just cost efficiency. Companies should communicate value beyond cost savings to stakeholders, and develop new KPIs.
Increasing regulatory demands will necessitate heightened supply chain transparency and accountability. So companies should strengthen supplier audits, adopt ESG tracking tools, and integrate compliance into strategic procurement decisions.
Widening tariffs and trade restrictions will force companies to reassess total cost of ownership (TCO) metrics to include geopolitical and environmental risks, as nearshoring and friendshoring attempt to balance resilience with cost.
Rising energy costs and regulatory demands will accelerate the shift to sustainable operations, pushing companies to invest in renewable energy and redesign supply chains to align with ESG commitments.
New tariffs could drive prices higher, just as inflation has come under control and interest rates are returning to near-zero levels. That means companies must continue to secure cost savings as their primary responsibility.
Specifically, 48% of respondents identified rising tariffs and trade barriers as their top concern, followed by supply chain disruptions at 45% and geopolitical instability at 41%. Moreover, tariffs and trade barriers ranked as the priority issue regardless of company size, as respondents at companies with less than 250 employees, 251-500, 501-1,000, 1,001-50,000 and 50,000+ employees all cited it as the most significant issue they are currently facing.
“Evolving tariffs and trade policies are one of a number of complex issues requiring organizations to build more resilience into their supply chains through compliance, technology and strategic planning,” Jackson Wood, Director, Industry Strategy at Descartes, said in a release. “With the potential for the incoming U.S. administration to impose new and additional tariffs on a wide variety of goods and countries of origin, U.S. importers may need to significantly re-engineer their sourcing strategies to mitigate potentially higher costs.”
A measure of business conditions for shippers improved in September due to lower fuel costs, looser trucking capacity, and lower freight rates, but the freight transportation forecasting firm FTR still expects readings to be weaker and closer to neutral through its two-year forecast period.
Bloomington, Indiana-based FTR is maintaining its stance that trucking conditions will improve, even though its Shippers Conditions Index (SCI) improved in September to 4.6 from a 2.9 reading in August, reaching its strongest level of the year.
“The fact that September’s index is the strongest since last December is not a sign that shippers’ market conditions are steadily improving,” Avery Vise, FTR’s vice president of trucking, said in a release.
“September and May were modest outliers this year in a market that is at least becoming more balanced. We expect that trend to continue and for SCI readings to be mostly negative to neutral in 2025 and 2026. However, markets in transition tend to be volatile, so further outliers are likely and possibly in both directions. The supply chain implications of tariffs are a wild card for 2025 especially,” he said.
The SCI tracks the changes representing four major conditions in the U.S. full-load freight market: freight demand, freight rates, fleet capacity, and fuel price. Combined into a single index, a positive score represents good, optimistic conditions, while a negative score represents bad, pessimistic conditions.
The New Hampshire-based cargo terminal orchestration technology vendor Lynxis LLC today said it has acquired Tedivo LLC, a provider of software to visualize and streamline vessel operations at marine terminals.
According to Lynxis, the deal strengthens its digitalization offerings for the global maritime industry, empowering shipping lines and terminal operators to drastically reduce vessel departure delays, mis-stowed containers and unsafe stowage conditions aboard cargo ships.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
More specifically, the move will enable key stakeholders to simplify stowage planning, improve data visualization, and optimize vessel operations to reduce costly delays, Lynxis CEO Larry Cuddy Jr. said in a release.