Container shipping outlook pressured by slower trade growth

The container shipping outlook is becoming more challenging as global trade growth slows while a large amount of new vessel capacity continues to enter the market.

In its latest Sunday Spotlight commentary, Sea-Intelligence examines the IMF’s October 2026 World Economic Outlook from a container shipping perspective. The IMF expects world trade volume growth to ease from 5.0% in 2025 to 4.7% in 2027, while import demand in advanced economies is projected to slow from 5.0% in 2026 to 4.2% in 2027. For shipping lines, this means demand growth may not be strong enough to absorb all of the newly delivered capacity.

Trade patterns between the US and China are also changing. Following new tariffs introduced in 2025, direct Chinese exports to the US fell 22% over 12 months, while US exports to China declined 25%. However, overall trade volumes have remained more resilient as production and exports have been redirected through other markets.

Sea-Intelligence notes that Chinese producers redirected 52% of affected products toward other Asian countries, while US exporters redirected 17%. Parts are increasingly being routed through countries including Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia before final shipment to the US. This helps maintain cargo flows but introduces additional port calls, greater logistical complexity and higher costs.

The artificial intelligence boom is creating another shift in trade. Although the value of AI hardware trade has risen sharply, its physical weight has increased only marginally. Microprocessors are mainly transported by air, but the heavier materials required to build AI data centres are carried in ocean containers, providing an important source of heavy cargo for container shipping lines.

Source: Sea-Intelligence, Sunday Spotlight, “IMF Outlook: Container Shipping Under Strain,” 22 October 2026.