{"id":454,"date":"2016-09-19T14:51:22","date_gmt":"2016-09-19T14:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/?p=454"},"modified":"2021-03-27T13:57:06","modified_gmt":"2021-03-27T13:57:06","slug":"factors-influencing-trade-fluctuations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/2016\/09\/19\/factors-influencing-trade-fluctuations\/","title":{"rendered":"Factors influencing trade fluctuations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=&#8221;https:\/\/vimeo.com\/473740460&#8243;][vc_column_text]See also <a href=\"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/2016\/09\/07\/11-2-2-4-ship-chartering-hiring-a-ship\/\">Lesson 11.2.2 \u00a0Ship Chartering (\u201cHiring\u201d a Ship)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The level of trade rises and falls, depending on a number of factors :<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Global or regional economic changes<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 If the world or a region is experiencing an economic boom, its export trade will flourish. Money will be available to buy imported goods, and the level of trade (imports and exports) will rise, with a positive effect on shipping. A containership, for example, will be able to leave the country with good exports cargoes. Because the prosperity within that country will lead to a large demand for imported goods, that containership will return with good import cargoes. The reverse is also true : a country experiencing a difficult time economically will not be producing or importing as much cargo as it might do in better times. This will reduce the volume of cargo available for shipment and shipping services will suffer.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Climatic factors<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 For agricultural products, rainfall is important. In times of plentiful rainfall, farms will produce good crops (e.g. grains, fruit) and even meat that can be exported in larger quantities. This means that bulk carriers will find export grain cargoes to move; for containerships, a good year of fruit production will mean good export fruit cargoes in reefer containers. In times of drought, the agricultural sector suffers and will not produce as much as in times of good rainfall. Therefore, there will not be as much agricultural produce to export, and food (especially grains for human and animal use) will need to be imported. Grain imports will be brought by bulkers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Product-specific fluctuations<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 Occasionally, variations in the movement of a single product can influence trade, and therefore affect shipping. The best example in recent years is oil. The oil price slump that began in about 2013 initially stimulated the trade in crude oil as countries stocked up with cheaper crude oil, and oil companies stocked up with cheaper oil products. Soon, the stockpiles of crude oil and refined products had grown so large that there was little demand for imports of oil or oil products. This meant that many of the busy tanker trades weakened and tanker rates dropped.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong><em>Political instability or the threat of it \u00ad<\/em><\/strong>&#8211; Any threat of political instability can cause a sharp decline in trade; actual political instability reduces the ability of a country to produce its usual exports and there is usually a reduction in imports as people are more focused on survival than on buying luxuries. Thus for trade to flourish, peace and political stability is required.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h4><span style=\"color: #107980\"><strong>Test yourself<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-456\" src=\"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/09\/11_3_1_Article.png\" alt=\"11_3_1_article\" width=\"837\" height=\"607\" srcset=\"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/09\/11_3_1_Article.png 837w, https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/09\/11_3_1_Article-300x218.png 300w, https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/09\/11_3_1_Article-768x557.png 768w, https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/09\/11_3_1_Article-201x146.png 201w, https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/09\/11_3_1_Article-50x36.png 50w, https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2016\/09\/11_3_1_Article-103x75.png 103w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 837px) 100vw, 837px\" \/><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"color: #107980\">Read the extracts above &#8211; from an article in <em>Business Report<\/em> of 13 July 2016.<\/span>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"color: #107980\">What is the yearly consumption of white maize in South Africa?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #107980\">How much white maize was being imported into South Africa that year?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #107980\">How much white maize was produced in South Africa per year?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #107980\">If the average shipload of imported white maize is 42\u00a0000 tons, how many shiploads of white maize would be needed in the year?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #107980\">What type of ship would be best suited to bring the following cargoes to South Africa?<\/span>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"color: #107980\">42\u00a0000 tons of bulk grain<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #107980\">60 tons of bagged grain<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #107980\">The annual average rainfall for a grain-producing area in South Africa is 550 mm. It received 320mm of rainfall in a given year.<\/span>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"color: #107980\">What is the effect of this year\u2019s rainfall on grain production?<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #107980\">What effect could that rainfall have on shipping?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_video link=&#8221;https:\/\/vimeo.com\/473740460&#8243;][vc_column_text]See also Lesson 11.2.2 \u00a0Ship Chartering (\u201cHiring\u201d a Ship) The level of trade rises and falls, depending on a number of factors : Global or regional economic changes \u2013 If the world or a region is experiencing an economic boom, its export trade will flourish. Money will be available [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-11-3-international-trade","category-11-3-3-factors-influencing-trade-fluctuations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":770,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maritimesa.org\/grade-11\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}