Selasa, 11 Desember 2012

Maritime trade has existed for millennia. The Ptolemaic dynasty had developed trade with India using the Red Sea ports and in the first millennium BC the Arabs, Phoenicians, Israelites and Indians were engaged in sea and land trade in luxury goods such as spices, gold, precious stones, ebony and pearls.[72] The Phoenicians were noted sea traders and under the Greeks and Romans, commerce continued to thrive. With the collapse of the Roman Empire, European trade dwindled but it continued to flourish among the kingdoms of Africa, the Middle East, India, China and southeastern Asia.[73] Another aspect of historic trade was the shipping of about 13 million people across the Atlantic from the 16th to the 19th centuries to be sold as slaves in the Americas.[74]

Nowadays, large quantities of commodities and merchandise are transported by sea, especially across the Atlantic and around the Pacific Rim. A major trade route passes through the Pillars of Hercules, across the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean and through the Straits of Malacca; much trade also passes through the English Channel.[75] Shipping lanes are the routes on the open sea used by cargo vessels. In the days of sail, these were influenced by the trade winds and currents, and there are still advantages of using these routes today as they allow vessels to maintain an even keel. Over 60 percent of the world's container traffic is conveyed on the top twenty trade routes.[76] Shipping is supplemented by air freight in which cargoes are moved by aircraft, but this is a more expensive process and is mostly used for particularly valuable or perishable cargoes. Seaborne trade carries more than US $4 trillion worth of goods each year.[77]

Supertanker

Supertanker AbQaiq in ballast
There are two main kinds of freight, bulk cargo and break bulk or general cargo. Commodities are bulky goods in the form of liquids, powder or particles and include oil, grain, coal, ore, scrap metal, sand and gravel. These cargoes are carried loose in the holds of bulk carriers. Break bulk cargo is usually manufactured goods and is transported in packages, often stacked on pallets. Before the arrival of containerization in the 1950s, these goods were loaded into the hold, stacked and secured, transported to their destination, unstacked and unloaded in a piecemeal fashion.[78] The increased use of containers has greatly increased the efficiency and decreased the cost of moving these goods to international destinations. The use of containers also improves the efficiency of moving the goods from the warehouse to the ship and from the port of arrival to the final destination.[79]

Most freight now travels in containers that are loaded on board purpose-built container ships at dedicated terminals. Container ships have hatches extending across the whole width of the vessel and carry containers both in their holds and on deck.[80] The containers are lockable steel boxes in standard sizes; this facilitates handling and stacking, and prevents pilfering. Empty containers are reused.[80] Freight forwarding firms book the cargo, arrange pickup and delivery and manage the necessary documentation

0 komentar:

Posting Komentar