Drewry upbeat about ro/ro business

   Drewry, a maritime research firm, said the car carrier industry is “better positioned than most others in the shipping industry, who suffer from large newbuilding orderbooks, to weather a double-dip recession.”
   Publicizing a new report on the sector, Drewry said “the downturn hurt car-carrying vessels, with capacity utilization falling significantly,” but added “operators are now less likely to charter tonnage for long periods, instead placing an emphasis on full employment of owned tonnage. With limited numbers of newbuild vessels coming into service, increased demand is easier to meet and an excess of new capacity is not going to blight operators, if the economy retrenches.”
   It projects that over the next 15 years the global trade in motor vehicles will increase by about 3 to 4 percent per year, but notes the trade has changed with “shifting manufacturing bases from West to East. This shift towards regionalized production will stifle the deepsea trade to some extent, but will benefit the seaborne trade in containerized vehicle parts.”
   Drewry said “the threat to deepsea trade might not materialize in the near future,” adding that it projects Japan will have strong growth in 2012-15, European trade will return to 2007 levels by 2015, and South Korea will experience an average increase of at least 4.5 percent for the next 10 years.
   “Even though production is shifting towards Eastern countries, there is a ray of light in the eastbound trades. Only a few years ago, this was a ballast leg for car carriers after importing cars from Asia, but many ships now sail with paying cargo, as demand from China for luxury European car brands continues,” the firm said.
   Drewry also said shipment of high and heavy vehicles “will benefit from the inexorable expansion of the mining and agriculture sectors.”