Sector outlook

The market research institute Drewry recently raised its growth forecast for global container throughput in 2023 to 1.0 %, compared with its estimate in March. However, there are significant differences between the individual shipping regions.

For example, the forecast for the Europe shipping region has been downgraded significantly: instead of growth of 0.9 %, Drewry now expects a decline of 1.2 %. An even stronger throughput loss of 4.5 % is expected for North-West Europe. Drewry’s experts believe that the northern European ports will be hit particularly hard by shrinking economic output in the eurozone and the sanctions-related loss of Russian business. Although a recovery is expected for the second half of the year, it is unlikely to be sufficiently robust to prevent a further year of declining throughput volumes in the European shipping regions.