In 2025, global maritime trade continues to navigate an environment marked by volatility, rerouted flows and uncertainty. Persistent geopolitical tensions and trade policy changes have altered shipping patterns, with many routes redirected away from traditional chokepoints.
While containerized trade is expanding, especially along extraregional corridors, East–West routes remain dominant, anchored by Asia’s central role in global logistics. Supply chains are increasingly diversified, with more complex origin and destination networks emerging to manage rising uncertainty.
At the same time, energy-related trade is undergoing a structural transformation. Longer hauls and redirected flows are affecting tanker demand. Trade in critical minerals, vital to clean energy transitions, remains concentrated in a handful of exporters, heightening exposure to strategic and logistical chokepoints.
Key policy takeaways
Persistent rerouting of maritime flows has heightened exposure to delays and rising costs, especially for structurally vulnerable economies such as the least developed countries and small island developing States. Strategic investments in corridor connectivity and transport infrastructure are key to mitigating these effects.
Ongoing trade fragmentation and evolving industrial policies are reshaping global value chains and maritime trade patterns. These shifts risk marginalizing smaller economies from emerging trade corridors. Maritime transport policies should prioritize regional integration, strengthen port–hinterland connectivity, and support logistics capacity to enable diversified sourcing and reduce exposure to geographically concentrated trade flows.
The changing geography of containerized trade calls for enhanced port competitiveness and coordination. Countries with the logistics capacity to manage diversified sourcing – efficiently handling goods from multiple origins – will be better positioned to attract trade and investment within reconfigured supply chains.
In the energy sector, ports must prepare for longer hauls and a growing share of low-carbon industrial and energy-related cargoes. This requires future-ready infrastructure, including deeper berths, expanded storage, improved intermodal links and faster cargo handling.
Expanding trade in critical minerals offers opportunities but also heightens supply chain risks. Policy responses should promote domestic processing, multimodal logistics and alignment with renewed industrial policies.
In 2024 and 2025, seaborne trade has continued to adjust in response to geopolitical tensions, evolving maritime routes, and accelerating shifts in the global energy and industrial landscapes. Supply chain restructuring, technological adaptation and resilience-building are reshaping maritime trade patterns, with growing policy attention to energy security, sustainability and trade fragmentation.
While global seaborne trade in 2024 experienced firm growth, supported by an easing of supply chain disruptions and improved performance in some developing regions, the outlook for 2025 suggests more modest growth or even stagnation in both overall volumes and ton-miles. According to UNCTAD projections, maritime trade volume is expected to expand by 0.5 per cent in 2025, with containerized trade increasing by 1.4 per cent. Over the medium term (2026–2030), total seaborne trade is projected to grow at an average annual rate of 2 per cent, while containerized trade is forecast to rise by 2.3 per cent.
A combination of factors influences this trajectory. These include persistent macroeconomic uncertainty, sluggish global demand and continued disruptions along key shipping lanes. At the same time, deeper structural shifts – such as industrial policy changes, strategic subsidies and trade measures, supply chain diversification, increased demand for clean energy inputs, and the intensification of environmental and traceability standards – are redefining global trade dynamics and reshaping the maritime transport landscape.
To further understand these evolutions, section A outlines
trends in the demand for maritime transport services
and analyses seaborne trade developments within the
context of the global economy and international trade. It
includes a forecast and outlook on future trends. Section
B examines specific developments affecting trade in
energy products and containerized goods. Section
C explores seaborne trade in critical minerals.