Recovery of Japanese Container Shipping

Over a year ago, Japan was hit by a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami that would forever change the landscape of the Japanese ports not to mention society in general. With the thousands of deaths and countless displaced citizens we can only expect the recovery of the Japanese shipping ports and overall trade industry to be sluggish especially with the world economy as troubled as it is. At the time of the disaster, most people thought that shipping would stop completely at first in the areas that were affected, but then move on slowly as everything moved back to normal in the port and shore areas. The problem is that getting back to normal is not exactly happening as quickly as hoped. Despite the reconstruction that has been taking place the container shipping industry has had an extremely slow recovery and is still almost non-existent in some areas despite the efforts. Places like the Port of Yokohama have continued to move forward thankfully but again have still yet to completely recover. Since this was a ranked shipping port, it has been a priority for the Japanese shippers as well as shipping lines. With the low freight rates that were offered and the constant rebuilding mentality, the shipping industry has been growing in the devastated areas. Unfortunately, the container shipping lines have not been able to keep the amount of container ships going and the lower shipping rates are changing and increasing. As the world economy recovers though, there are high hopes that Japan will continue increase as their own economy begins to recover.