Joanna James
Ships and shipping containers have been serving economies around the world since ancient times. About 90 per cent of the entire world's goods are carried by the international shipping industry forming an integral part of the world economy. Let us learn about this crucial link to the world economy.
Being the most economical and safe mode of transport for imports and exports internationally, ships and shipping containers are also the most environment-friendly mode of transporting such huge volumes of goods. Carrying up to 20,000 containers at a time, the largest container ships are about 400 metres long. whilst 97 per cent of all these are produced in China due to the lower cost of labour and most of the goods carried around in containers are also produced in China. Did you realize that around 675 shipping containers are lost at sea annually?
Many container ships can carry up to 8000 container loads of manufactured goods and products in a single journey. Many such container ships move through cargo hubs such as the South Asian container terminal. Big car carrier ships handle close to 7600 cars at a time. A large container ship can carry over 200,000 containers in a year. So, just wonder at the number of freight planes, truckloads and wagons required if such goods were not possible to be carried by shipping containers.
The power of a container ship engine is 1000 times more than that of a family car. But such container ship only travels at 26.5 miles per hour. Using about 150 to 250 tonnes of fuel per day, these large cargo ships' consumption of fuel per kilometre is equivalent to the total of 3770 smart cars for the same distance. Their travels in the ocean annually are about 75 per cent of that of a voyage to the moon and back. Of the ship's crew on these mighty vessels, one third have no access to communication with the outside world, only 10 per cent of the crew members have internet access.
With over 50,000 merchant ships roaming the ocean, they can be classified into six different fleet types. General cargo ships, fishing vessels, cruise ships, tankers, container ships and bulk carriers. All these types of vessels are handled by container terminals such as the South Asia Gateway Terminals in their course of work. The 03 leading nations having the largest fleets are Japan, Greece, Germany with China and the United States of America coming in fourth and fifth places respectively.
Almost one and a half million seafarers contribute to keeping these massive ships running smoothly and on time. Consisting of a global community of sailors drawn from almost all countries of the world, only 02 per cent happen to be females. Furthermore, most seafarers happen to be nationals of the Philippines going up to about 30per cent of the entire seafarers of the world.
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