THE latest Global Port Tracker, the North Europe Trade Outlook report anticipates that shipping volumes will not grow as much this December as they did last year, and volumes are forecast to "then drop off sharply in 2012".

    Authors from Hackett Associates and the Bremen Institute of Shipping Economics and Logistics forecast a 12.5 per cent increase to 8.89 TEU million across 2011, reported London's International Freighting Weekly. But they also said they were less and less optimistic about 2012.

    "We expect growth to drop off sharply, much as it has done in North America," said Ben Hackett. "We again caution that freight rates will remain under pressure unless a sizeable part of capacity is withdrawn from the market."

(source:http://www.shippingonline.cn/news/newsList.asp?classname=News)