While we thought 2011 would be a “bridging year” in preparation for major expansion in 2012, we instead saw further upheavals in financial markets that injected the type of uncertainty that is so unsettling when it comes to planning for significant capital expenditures. The future of the euro is currently on center stage. Any eventual fallout effect specifically on U.S. liner shipping and generally on global trade is hard to predict. In any case, it adds considerable “fog” when navigating for growth.
Recent economic news regarding pre-holiday sales is encouraging for HMM. We are heavily oriented toward east-west trade that depends on imports of consumer goods. Balancing this is the encouraging strong forecast for Asia’s demand for raw materials as well as the estimate that Asia’s private consumption is expected to grow between 3 and 4 percent in the next two years. We anticipate that this development will have a cascading effect on the future for U.S. export trade and ultimately lead to a more balanced trade flow.