Sea trade is the cheapest and most common way in which companies and countries around the world trade their goods locally, regionally and internationally. No one country has all the resources or manufactured goods within its country to function efficiently and effectively hence the reason for international trade. International trade is the exchange of goods and services between countries around the globe. This type of trade gives rise to a world economy, in which prices, or supply and demand is affected by global events. Sea trade can be classified as bulk, general cargo (liner) or specialized parcels depending on the commodity being shipped, parcel size, function and/or handling characteristics.
Bulk cargo are commodities which are shipped from one place to another
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Inter-regional shipping or deep sea shipping is the only economically viable mean of transportation between continental land masses or from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’ on the same continent. There are about 20,000 ships in this trade, offering services ranging from low cost bulk transport to fast regular liner services. Air freight sometimes competes with the liner service for transporting commodities such as; machinery parts, personal items and live stock, it is far more expensive than the liner service.
Short sea shipping provides transport of goods within regions such as the West Indies and the Far East. The cargo is delivered to regional centres such as Hong Kong or Jamaica (the largest transhipment port in the Caribbean) by deep sea bulk and liner vessels and provides a port to port service to neighbouring ports. Short sea shipping is much different to deep sea or inter-regional shipping. Smaller vessels are used in this market because some port cannot support very large ships such as a VLCC and because trips are so short, trading in this market requires great organizational