How is maritime trade developing over the last decades?

Due to globalization, maritime traffic has more than tripled over the last decades and is expected to continue growing Growing demand from developed economies of North America, Europe and Japan leads to an increase in energy, container and mineral cargoes. Globalization leads to an international division of the production and consumption. Technical improvements in ship and maritime terminals facilitate the flows of freight. Economies of scale permit maritime transportation to remain a low cost mode, a trend which is strengthened by containerization. In 2007, world seaborne trade (goods loaded) increased by 4,8% to surpass 8 billion tons for the first time. World container port throughput grew by an estimated 11,7% to reach 485 million TEUs in 2007. Chinese ports accounted for about 28,4% of total world container port throughput.