Maersk is expanding its logistics network to support rising trade demand as freight rates stabilise following last year’s volatility. Christopher Cook, Managing Director of South Asia at Maersk, forecasts a 4% growth in global trade this year and expects the company’s performance to align with this trend.

Cook explained, “The freight rates did see an acceleration at the start of last year as a lot of capacity came out of the market, and then goods had to be transited, we had to redeploy our networks around the Cape of Good Hope. We have seen a in the second part of the year, we saw a bit of a cooling off the freight rates are very much defined by supply and demand.”

Maersk has observed strong growth in India, particularly in key commodity sectors such as apparel, automotive, and cold chain logistics.

India’s exports have grown 2% year-on-year over the past five years, with apparel exports rising by 14%, automotive by 12%, and the cold chain sector expanding by 9%.

The company expects this momentum to continue and is actively reconfiguring its networks to accommodate increasing demand from the region.

Read Here | Non-tariff barriers hurt trade 2.5 times more than tariffs: Govt sources

Cook said, “North America remains the largest trading partner, but we see some growth in some of those European, African, Latin American markets. Imports is a bit slower, and a large part of the import market is driven by waste and scrap, and some of those volumes have reduced over the last year.”

To enhance service reliability, Maersk has introduced the Gemini Cooperation network, which is expected to achieve 90% reliability—a significant improvement over the 55-60% market standard observed last year.

Also Read | Cochin Shipyard inks MoU with AP Moller-Maersk for ship repair, maintenance and shipbuilding in India