Shipping sector will stay firm despite fading boom

A boom in world shipping markets is cooling off, but the sector will still remain strong for years to come, bankers and industry experts say. “They were really exceptional years,” Matthias Umlauf, a senior economist with HSH Nordbank AG, said of 2004 and 2005, when seaborne freight indices across oil and dry commodities trade smashed records. “But compared to the last two years, freight rates have seen a downward correction across the sectors full stop. That’s negative,” he said at an energy shipping and trade conference.