All the international institutions are trimming their GDP forecasts, not only for this year but for next year as well. There is doubt in the air and if one inhales enough there is also a scent of fear.<\/p>\n
The World Bank has cut its growth forecasts for the Asia Pacific region for this year and next because of the risks posed from a sharp slowdown in China and rising US interest rates. The International Monetary Fund also said in September that slowing growth in China poses a threat to the global economy. Ultimately, the prospect of a financial meltdown cannot be ignored as deflation remains stubbornly on the scene and interest rate increases are delayed time and time again by central banks.<\/p>\n
Exchange rates are not helping either: the US dollar remains very strong making exports challenging; the Euro is weak causing imports to suffer; and in China, the Government has made some corrective devaluations of the Yuan in the face of Western pressure to revalue. It is a very ‘topsy-turvy’ world.<\/p>\n
Neither the Eurozone economies nor the Chinese economy are healthy in the face of all this global pressure, which raises the question as to where the economic engine is. It is certainly not the US where the Government is struggling to secure a budget and is in danger of a shutdown. Its political arena is a total mess with leadership vacuums in the House of Representatives and turmoil in the Republican Party. The President, in the meantime, spends his time worrying about global warming.<\/p>\n
This uncertainty comes at a time when ports are looking to expand and make investments in infrastructure. Much of the expansion comes from nations selling off their ports via long term concession agreements.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, shipowners are ordering ships in an environment of large scale decline in demand, particularly on the bulk side and container growth remains weak. Despite hopeful expectations, we may all be in for another year of disappointments. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
COMMENT: The leaders of the major economies are hoping that next year will be better than 2015 is turning out to be as the stock markets crash around us, wars engulf us in more places than can be rushed to and consumers remain wary of their future. However, the signs are not good, writes Ben Hackett.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":9428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-9427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-economist"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9429,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9427\/revisions\/9429"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9427"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=9427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}