Sustainability
Commerce is how we reach out and connect with new people, places and cultures. It is the way we share goods, ideas, skills and technologies. At its best, trade is an accelerator for the exchange of knowledge, prosperity, and well-being.
The maritime industry helps ensure that the benefits of trade are more equitably distributed. No country is totally self-sufficient, and each country requires maritime trade to sell what it has and buy what it needs.
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Thanks to the maritime sector, developing economies have been able to export their products around the world, creating jobs and improving the living standards of their populations.
The maritime industry is a sector of vital importance for the development of countries. Around 50,000 merchant ships, registered in more than 150 countries and served by more than a million maritime professionals of almost all nationalities, transport all types of goods internationally.
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As prosperity rises, so will their education levels, and countries can build more advanced industries instead of shipping their raw materials, creating more skilled jobs and further advancing quality of life.
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Shipping is the world's first truly global industry, and it makes the global economy work. By connecting countries, markets, businesses and people, shipping makes it possible to buy and sell goods on a scale never before possible. And as consumers, we have become accustomed to seeing products from all over the world available in the physical and virtual stores that we visit.
