A simple box which changed the world.

How could a simple box become the eighth wonder of the world? The answer is before our eyes every day – the container. ‘Container shipping has shrunk the planet and brought about a revolution because the cost of shipping boxes is so cheap,’ says Martin Stopford of Clarksons, the shipping broker. People talk about the contribution of Microsoft, but container shipping has got to be among the ten most influential industries over the past thirty years.

The simple standardized box that transformed seaborne freight in the sixties has taken on a vibrant 21st century life and the Internet may add a knot or two to the speed. With the Internet, operators have been allowed to cut paperwork and reduce reliance on middlemen. It also lets customers track their consignments more easily.

The shipping industry is booming, underpinned by solid economic growth. In the thirty years the boxes have been around, the amount of goods shipped in them has expanded at 8 to 10 per cent a year, and the industry is now worth an annual $ 100 bn. The expansion of container shipping far outstrips growth in the world economy, historically about 3 per cent a year, and even growth in world trade, which runs up by 5 per cent a year.

Before container shipping, seaborne trade was slow and unreliable. In the early sixties, at Liverpool docks for example, ships were made to spend weeks, even months in port while they were being unloaded. And during that time a substantial proportion of the goods would be stolen, or get damaged by the weather. Today the goods are protected in a container during passage and in port. With cranes specially built to lift the containers, a ship can be in and out of a port in 10 hours, saving thousands in port charges and speeding up trade.

The world's container shipping fleet trebled in the nineties and it now accounts, by value, for more than half all cargo shipped. Ships can carry 7,000 standard containers compared with 2,000 in 1990. In 1980, to ship a 40ft container from North America to Europe would have cost $2,500. Today that cost is $2,200. With vessels getting bigger, each new one adds to capacity.

Seaborne transport is so cheap it makes sense for Nike to have its trainers made in South East Asia. And companies in remote parts of the world can snatch business from under the nose of a local producer. In fact, if moving goods by container were not so inexpensive, trading many of the products shipped around the world today would not be worthwhile. Second-hand motorcycles are shipped from America to be sold in Europe where they fetch twice the price.

7.6  Answer questions below based on the text.

1) Why has container shipping been called the eighth wonder of the world?

2) When did the container revolution begin?

3) How has the Internet contributed to the container revolution?

4) How quickly has containerization grown?

5) What was wrong with the old method of loading and unloading cargo?

6) How can container ships be unloaded so quickly?

7) Have transportation costs continued to rise?

8) How has containerization contributed to international trade?

7.7 Complete the sentences with a word from the box below. All the words appeared in the text.

cargo               cranes    freight        docks

consignment      vessel    paperwork

1) No ships arrive at the city___    any more. The area has been converted into a new business centre.

2) Powerful ___load and unload the ships.

3) There are a lot of documents and other____to deal with.

4) We sent a  ___of components by sea three months ago but it still

hasn't arrived.

5) In the old days, a ship's ____could easily be damaged in bad weather.

6) There was a terrible accident when two____trains ran into each other. One was carrying bricks, the other coal.

7) A___is simply another word for a ship or large boat.

Study the text and find words and expressions which mean:

1) agent who arranges the transport of cargo by ship

2) made smaller                                                        

3) energetic

4) a measurement of speed at sea  

5) to follow the movements of something

6) growing / expanding very quickly

7) to be greater in quantity than something else

8) to take something away from someone with a quick, often violent, movement

9) goods that are carried by ship, train or aircraft, and the system of moving these goods

10) to achieve a price