10:37 AM Oct 30, 1996

SHIPPING: SEABORNE TRADE REACHES NEW RECORD VOLUME

Geneva 29 Oct (TWN) -- The world seaborne trade rose by 3.7% in 1995 -- reaching a record volume of 4.65 billion tons, according to UNCTAD's annual Review of Maritime Transport, 1995 published Tuesday.

This is the tenth consecutive year of annual increase, with the 3.7% percent growth the highest since 1990.

According to preliminary data, UNCTAD estimates a growth rate of 3 to 3.5 percent in 1996 reaching a volume of 4.8 billion tons.

The survey brings out that the relative level of freight costs incurred by industrialized countries of the OECD is about half of that of developing countries.

Freight costs as a percentage of import value was 4.29% in 1994 for the OECD countries, while that for developing countries as a whole was 8.25% or nearly double.

Within this average, freight costs were highest for developing countries in Oceania at 12.24% of import value with that for Africa close behind at 11.05%. The ratio for Americas was 7.95% and that for Asia 7.97%.

The high freight costs for African countries are seen as hampering their trade.

The report says structural differences in foreign trade, more efficient infrastructure facilities and trading arrangements, as well as greater bargaining power of shippers in OECD countries as responsible for this disparity.

For the landlocked countries, the freight costs were a higher proportion of import value, much higher than for neighbours with direct sea access. It was 21.67% for Burkina Faso compared to 16.76% for Benin, and 29.57% for Mali compared to 19.32% for Cote d'Ivoire. Rwanda in Central Africa had much higher proportion of 29.91% compared to Kenya's 13.81%.

But these differences are seen as due more to costs on land than maritime transport costs. While there is only a limited difference in ocean freight rates between the African sub-regions, major differences exist on inland transport costs on the different corridors serving the landlocked countries.

The growth in seaborne trade is primarily due to dry bulk cargoes (specially grain, iron ore and coal), and to a lesser extent growing volume of general cargoes, mainly manufactures.

Growth in oil cargoes was more modest, rising only by 2.3% in the crude oil sector and 1.8% in products sector.

The share of cargo loaded by developing countries remained uncharged at 50.8%, while that unloaded by them was stable at 26.9%. Asian countries increased their share of both goods loaded and unloaded at 27.2 and 17.8 percent respectively.

The share of Central and Eastern Europe continued to decline -- due largely to the continuous decline in output of the Russian federation.

Many sub-Saharan African economies did well in 1995 -- registering an overall growth in exports of 14.3% in value and 7.5% in volume (over 1994) and 11.8% in value and 5.6% in volume on imports.

But the fleet capacity of sub-Saharan African countries remained very poor. Excluding Liberia, an open-registry or flags of convenience country, and South Africa, the share of sub-Saharan Africa decreased from 2 million dwt (deadweight tonnage) in 1994 to less than 1.4 million in 1995. Shipping of sub-Saharan Africa accounted for only a 0.19 percent share of world tonnage in 1995. Most of the fleet is of obsolete conventional general cargo vessels and tankers -- with each group accounting for about 40% of tonnage registered in these countries.