The volume of goods passing through the Suez Canal, reeling from attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on merchant ships in the Red Sea, has fallen by 42% in the past two months, the United Nations has estimated as it worries about the increasingly serious impact on global trade.
“We are very concerned about attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea (…), which are exacerbating trade disruptions due to geopolitical factors and climate change,” Jan Hoffman, head of the UN Conference on Trade and Trade, stressed at a press conference yesterday on Thursday. development (CNUCED in French, UNCTAD in English).
Due to the Houthi attacks, which forced major shipping companies to suspend transit through the Red Sea and divert their ships around Africa, trade through the Suez Canal fell by 42% in two months, according to CNUCED. The number of weekly container transits fell by 67% compared to the same period in 2023. Since “the largest container ships are no longer using the Suez Canal, the decline in container volume is even greater,” Hoffman explained. The reduction in transit of tankers carrying oil is 18%, bulk carriers (grain, coal…) – 6%, and gas transportation has completely stopped.
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Indicative notes on the transponders of ships passing through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait: “Russia-China”, “No ties with Israel”, “Everything Chinese”, “Russian/Syrian crew on board”.
Since November, Yemen’s Houthi rebels have said that in a show of “solidarity” with Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, they have been attacking ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that they say are linked to Israel.
Disruptions to trade across the Red Sea are even more troubling, Hoffman said, as “more than 80%” of global trade is carried out by sea and “other major shipping lanes are already under pressure.”
Trade across the Black Sea has faced enormous challenges since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which led to rising food prices in the following months.
At the same time, drought has caused water levels in the Panama Canal to drop, resulting in a reduction in shipping. Last month, the number of transit traffic through the canal fell by 36% compared to the same month in 2022 and by 62% compared to the same month in 2021, CNUCED noted.
Prolonged problems on key maritime trade routes could “hit global supply chains”, leading to “delays in the supply of goods”, “increasing costs” and increasing the risk of rising “inflation”, the UN agency said, which is particularly concerned about commodity prices. food on an international scale.
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