Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Wide-ranging factors are shaping global shipping markets including the supply of ship carrying capacity and fleet patterns. In 2022 and the first half of 2023 the supply of shipping capacity and services was affected by global economic developments which determine the demand for shipping. The supply was also impacted by market sentiment and expectations freight rates financial liquidity shipbuilding capacity and ship recycling activity. In 2022 the global fleet continued to grow but was ageing amid rising uncertainty about fleet renewal timelines. In 2022 global ship carrying capacity expanded at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent with overall tonnage hitting nearly 2.3 billion dead weight tons. On average the global fleet was two years older in 2023 compared to a decade earlier.

The Review of Maritime Transport is an UNCTAD flagship publication published annually since 1968. Around 80 per cent of the volume of international trade in goods is carried by sea and the percentage is even higher for most developing countries. The Review of Maritime Transport provides an analysis of structural and cyclical changes affecting seaborne trade ports and shipping as well as an extensive collection of statistical information. The report calls for a “just and equitable transition” to a decarbonized shipping industry. The sector whose greenhouse gas emissions have risen 20% over the last decade operates an ageing fleet that runs almost exclusively on fossil fuels. As global leaders prepare for the next UN climate conference (COP28) UNCTAD advocates for system-wide collaboration swift regulatory intervention and stronger investments in green technologies and fleets. Full decarbonization by 2050 will require massive investments and could lead to higher maritime logistics costs raising concerns for vulnerable shipping-reliant nations like small island developing states. The report emphasizes the need to balance environmental goals with economic needs but underscores that the cost of inaction far outweighs the required investments. The report recommends policy actions to overcome supply chain hurdles African countries face including poor logistics low levels of technology fragmented markets limited capital sources and weak institutions and regulations. Beyond cleaner fuels the industry needs to move faster towards digital solutions like AI and blockchain to improve efficiency as well as sustainability. In its analysis of global maritime trends the report highlights shipping’s resilience despite major challenges stemming from global crises such as the war in Ukraine. Maritime trade is expected to grow 2.4% in 2023 and more than 3% between 2024 and 2028.

The Review of Maritime Transport 2023 was prepared by UNCTAD under the overall guidance of Shamika N. Sirimanne Director of the Division on Technology and Logistics of UNCTAD and under the coordination of Jan Hoffmann Head of the Trade Logistics Branch Division on Technology and Logistics. Regina Asariotis Mark Assaf Celine Bacrot Hassiba Benamara Poul Hansen Jan Hoffmann Tomasz Kulaga Anila Premti Luisa Rodríguez and Frida Youssef co-authored the report.

In a world rife with cascading crises – geoeconomic fragmentation retreating development and climate change – maritime trade serves as a stabilizing anchor holding fast against the turbulent currents of disruption. Over four fifths of all trade in the world flows through the high seas. This includes the crucial trade of food energy and other essential goods. As recent trade disruptions and most notably that of Black Sea food exports due to the war in Ukraine have shown in our interconnected world billions of people need open ports and steady ships to eat keep their lights on and have their hospitals well-stocked.

The shipping sector is at the centre stage of the debate on sustainability. Like other economic sectors shipping generates greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and must reduce its carbon footprint. International shipping which carries over 80 per cent of the world merchandise trade by volume is responsible for nearly 3 per cent of all global GHG emissions.

This study examines two potentially opposing effects that the current state of trade globalization can have on foreign governmental lobbies in the United States. On one hand economic globalization and increased flows of goods may lead to more and more contentious issues between trading partners. On the other hand the growing networks of global value chains (GVCs) may mobilize interest groups in foreign lobbies’ target countries (the United States in this study) whose activities might substitute for those of foreign governmental lobbies. With such linkages an increase in lobbying activities by domestic producers may reduce the need for direct foreign lobbying on contentious issues. The study reveals different effects of forward and backward GVC linkages and the results have two main policy implications: first policymakers should be aware of the growing intricate nature of foreign influence; second more attention must be paid to political consequences of GVCs’ distributive effects particularly those from backward linkages.

Multinational enterprises in emerging markets (EMNEs) owing to weak enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPR) face challenges when undertaking domestic innovation. As a result they may search for superior IPR environments in which to create greenfield projects focused on research and development (R&D) and innovation. We hypothesize that the likelihood that an EMNE chooses to invest in an R&D-focused greenfield project over other FDI projects is positively associated with increased levels of host-country patent enforcement protection relative to its home market. In addition we hypothesize that EMNEs many in the process of catching up through “springboard” FDI with developed-market MNEs (DMNEs) are more sensitive to IPR protection than DMNEs. Results of logistic regression modelling of 112908 greenfield projects largely support our hypotheses. We discuss implications for understanding EMNE theorizing and policy which has to date focused more on regulating technology-seeking mergers and acquisitions (M&As) overlooking the growing importance of R&D-related greenfield FDI as an effective firm-level catch-up strategy for EMNEs.

This study aims to assess the pattern and prevalence of intrafirm activities in foreign exchange transactions of foreign affiliates in the manufacturing sector in India. The related-party foreign transactions of selected foreign affiliates are analysed for two years and the shares of financial payments directed to tax haven locations are identified to appraise the vulnerability of these outflow transactions to potential risk of corporate tax avoidance. A majority of foreign exchange earnings and expense transactions were found to be conducted within firms. The major part of intrafirm payments for the key expenditure types was made to various tax haven locations having different levels of tax avoidance risk. Close to half of all expense payments were traced to tax havens with several firms reporting predominant shares of intrafirm import financial or services payments linked to certain significant tax havens. The data indicate active involvement of foreign affiliates in India in the use of tax havens for foreign expense transfers which could be motivated by tax avoidance aims. This tendency is noted to be high for specific channels such as services interest payments and other miscellaneous transactions suggesting that these channels may be used for transfer mispricing and tax avoidance strategies by foreign-affiliated firms.

This glossary provides a comprehensive list of terms used in legislative practice related to market surveillance in English French and Russian. Market surveillance policies have a strong impact on business competitiveness international trade and economic development. To build an effective market surveillance system requires cooperation among the system stakeholders both nationally and internationally. For this purpose a common terminology is a prerequisite. A first multilingual glossary of market surveillance terms was published by the Working Party on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization Policies (WP.6) in 2011. Since then there have been new terms and procedures that have come into effect. This revision integrates terms such as “conformity rate" “information society service provider" “online interface" and “corrective action." This revision also proposes modification to some terms such as “market surveillance" “withdrawal" “technical regulation" and “technical specification.

Many companies across the world are rethinking their supply chain strategies in order to address gaps and mitigate risks. The disruption effects on global production and supply chains of recent global shocks and geopolitical dynamics such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have fueled the need for companies to minimize exposure to global distresses and reduce reliance on geographically concentrated suppliers and buyers.