Container shipping under strain as IMF cuts trade growth forecast

The container shipping market is faced with the adverse situation of a slowdown in trade volume growth for 2027.

The IMF’s October 2026 World Economic Outlook (WEO) report predicts a decline in world trade volume growth from 5.0% in 2025 to 4.7% in 2027.

In advanced economies, import demand is projected to be 5.0% in 2026 but soften to 4.2% in 2027.

“This means that demand is not growing fast enough to absorb all the newly built vessel capacity entering service,” said Denmark’s research and analysis specialist Sea‑Intelligence.

In issue 787 of the Sea-Intelligence Sunday Spotlight, the company analysed the IMF October 2026 World Economic Outlook report, from a container shipping perspective.

Direct bilateral trade between the US and China has also contracted because of the trade war.

As shown in figure 1, after new tariffs were put in place in 2025, Chinese exports sent directly to the US fell by ‑22% over 12 months. During that same period, US exports to China dropped by ‑25%. However, overall trade volumes did not collapse, because the production went to other places.