Growth in the global freight forwarding market slowed to its lowest rate in four years during 2007 according to Transport Intelligence’s “Global Freight Forwarding 2008″ report. However, the report also shows despite worldwide economic uncertainty, the market is still proving resilient, returning low double-digit growth. It also identified the sea freight market as considerably outperforming its air counterpart. Annual air freight forwarding growth dropped sharply, by almost five percentage points to 7.5% as the market cooled significantly. This was undoubtedly a result of lower volumes due to the economic slowdown and the migration of some traffic to cheaper sea freight options.

China Driving Seafreight Growth. Sea freight forwarding, meanwhile, continued to grow at a similar rate to the year before. China’s trade continued to develop at a very strong pace and was one of the key drivers of growth. US exports went some way towards mitigating weakness in this market’s imports, and throughout the year, Asia Pacific-Europe trade volumes grew markedly. Market growth was 14.3% in 2007. Of the main forwarding markets, Europe and Asia Pacific performed best, whilst North America - specifically the US - dragged down overall growth. The “credit crunch,” which has impacted on the US housing market, as well as the downturn in consumer confidence, particularly affected imports into the region, although exports picked up due to the weak dollar. Weakening economic indicators suggest Europe will be the next market to be affected and this will be evident in the 2008 growth figures.

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