It’s been a year since I last tried to foresee what would happen in the future, and it seems most of my predictions came true, for good or bad. But one thing has been a lot worse than expected: the tougher-than-expected competition among our usual competitors. We also have seen the entry of a couple of new players in the market, with surplus tonnage from the ro-ro carriers, and we have faced stiff completion from the container carriers now competing for breakbulk cargo on flatracks, more so than in the past.
While it looks like the decline for demand in consumer goods has stopped and may be starting to stabilize, the project sector is lagging far behind, as few new contracts have been signed. We also have seen a huge decline in wind power shipments, because of the lack of finance options, but the interest in renewable energy is still strong on a global basis. We foresee this segment picking up over the next year as we work our way through the financial crisis.
We still expect China, India and to a certain degree South America to be the locomotive that will take us out of the current slump, but we do not foresee any significant change in the depressed market until the third or fourth quarter.
We are confident, however, about the long term, and we have not slowed our shipbuilding program, because we believe the basic need worldwide for infrastructure development has not changed; it has merely been postponed.