ANALYSIS OF MATHEMATICAL MODELS OF MARITIME SHIPPING TRENDS IN A CRISIS ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

The maritime shipping sector has a considerable influence in socioeconomic development and investment potential of governments. Graphs of maritime shipping growth trends show a considerable decline related to the global economic crisis of 2008-2009, and the picture after the ongoing COVID crisis shows very similar figures. This shows that although maritime shipping overall has a positive growth outlook, there is an uncertainty regarding the stability of economical growth and related consequences for the maritime shipping sector. This uncertainty first of all is due to geopolitical and economic risks from trade politics and structural shifts, such as economics rebalancing in China, the decline in growth of global production-supply chains, changes in the global energetic balance, and the ongoing crisis. Also contributing to this is the emergence of new tendencies, in particular the spread of digital technologies which may change the face of maritime shipping as well as the streams and patterns of maritime shipping. It is still unclear how these factors would develop and how they would support or restrict the growth in maritime shipping. Even so, the long-term outlook for global container shipping volumes remains positive. Still, it is evident that further monitoring and evaluation is required. In this case, a closer look at the maritime shipping dynamics across various cargo types allows for a clearer picture of how maritime shipping can continue to develop. To that end, based on statistics on various maritime cargo shipments, we have performed a regression-correlation analysis and received linear regression equations which describe shipping trends of chemical products, liquids, container shipments, and other cargo types. The regression analysis is based on statistics from 2000-2018, so the forecast for the following years is done with the assumption that the same conditions persist. Recent events (the COVID-19 pandemic and the global crisis it caused) are force-majeure conditions, which would ultimately disrupt the forecast. Forecasting in this regard can be resumed when factual values for the decline in 2020-2021 would be made known.