The world’s economy is growing more slowly than the IMF and other large forecasters are predicting, A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S chief executive officer Nils Smedegaard Andersen said.
The Danish company, owner of the world’s biggest shipping line, is a bellwether for global trade, handling about 15 percent of all consumer goods transported by sea.
“We believe that global growth is slowing down,” he said in a telephone interview. “Trade is currently significantly weaker than it normally would be under the growth forecasts we see.”
The IMF on Oct. 6 lowered its global GDP forecast for this year to 3.1 percent from 3.3 percent, citing a slowdown in emerging markets driven by weak commodity prices.
The Washington-based fund also cut its forecast for next year to 3.6 percent from 3.8 percent.
However, even the revised forecasts might be too optimistic, according to Andersen.
“We conduct a string of our own macroeconomic forecasts and we see less growth — particularly in developing nations, but perhaps also in Europe — than other people expect in 2015,” Andersen said, adding that the company is “a little bit more pessimistic than most forecasters” for next year too.
Maersk’s container line on Friday reported a 61 percent slump in third-quarter profit as demand for ships to transport goods across the world hardly grew from a year earlier. The low growth rates are proving particularly painful for an industry that is already struggling with excess capacity.
Trade from Asia to Europe has so far suffered the most as a weaker euro makes it tougher for exporters like China to stay competitive, Andersen said.
Still, there are no signs yet that the global economy is heading for a slump similar to the one that followed the financial crisis of 2008, he said.
“We’re seeing some distortions amid this redistribution that’s taking place between commodity exporting countries and commodity importing countries, but this shouldn’t lead to an outright crisis,” he said. “At this point in time, there are no grounds for seeing that happening.”
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