Container shipping is unlikely to experience any impact of recent backlash against globalization causing companies to focus on forging regional supply chains to prevent shortage of key components, estimates Maersk Chief Executive Søren Skou in an interview with Financial Times on Friday.

According to Skou, who will be replaced by Vincent Clerc as CEO of Maersk by the turn of the year, politicians are globally seen taken a stronger interest in supply chains, including semiconductor supplies, after pandemic-caused congestion created widespread shortages on chips.

But even as regionalisation or ”nearshoring” are gaining ground worldwide, Skou expects shipping to be largely unaffected by it.

“For container shipping it may not matter very much,” he says. “We are not shipping a lot of chips, a lot of pharma. Most products in containers, they are not strategic. Whether it’s jeans or sneakers, I think there will still be a global trade,” Skou tells Financial Times.

He stresses, that not only has Maersk benefitted from globalization but that the company in fact has been one of the driving forces behind it, pointing out that it costs about USD 2,000 to transport a container from Asia to Europe that could contain 8,000 pair of trainers

“That’s why they’re making the sneakers in Asia. The transportation cost is not material,” Skou says.

He does, however, concede that soaring growth rates of upwards of 10 percent are behind us with pretty much all the manufacturing that could be moved to Asia to have done just that.

“Trade liberalisation has come to a stop and in some years it has gone backwards . . . Maybe we will see more regionalisation, which isn’t bad for our business. Globalisation has matured,” Skou concludes.

English edit: Simon Øst Vejbæk

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