Clarifying trade costs in maritime transport

OECD
March 2011

This paper is intended to inform Delegations on the newly compiled OECD Maritime Transport Cost database and provides an overview of some salient characteristics of the structure and evolutions in maritime transport as they may impact trade. It is made available more widely as a
background paper to the database.

This paper is part of a project that aims to improve understanding of the factors contributing to trade costs by examining maritime transport costs and their impacts on trade. The present paper represents a preliminary part of the project: it describes the maritime transport sector and some of the determinants of shipping costs, and outlines the methodology, describes the data, and underlines some of the limitations of an extensive new database compiled on maritime transport rates. This dataset is used in a number of companion papers to examine the impact of transport costs on trade. Maritime transport matters. Ninety percent of world trade by volume is carried by ship. Maritime traffic in 2007 was almost double its 2003 level. Operation of merchant ships generated an estimated annual income approaching US$ 380 billion in 2007, equivalent to about five percent of total world trade.

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Also:
Maritime Transport Costs database (OECD.Stat Extracts)
Consult OECD data for maritime transport costs between trading partner countries and for specific commodities. N.B. This dataset should be used in conjunction with the paper Clarifying Trade Costs in Maritime Transport (see below) which outlines methodology, data coverage and caveats to its use.