by Lloyd's List

7 August 2025 (Lloyd's List) - MAERSK chief executive Vincent Clerc said that the growth of Chinese consumer and industrial brands across the world was leading to potentially irreversible changes to supply chains.

While a push to offshore manufacturing by Western companies since China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2002 had reached maturity, Clerc noted that Chinese manufacturing strength was showing no sign of declining.

“Despite all the talks about de-globalisation, this has actually accelerated due to the huge market success of Chinese companies,” said Clerc on an investors’ call following the release of the company’s second-quarter results.

The expansion of Chinese brands across the world has led to rising Chinese export volumes, in particular to countries in the southern hemisphere, at the expense of Western companies.

“Will it last another quarter or another five years? Some countries could decide it threatens their interests too much and produce a rise in protectionism,” said Clerc.

The march of Chinese brands was providing a new driver in container shipping demand that was adding upside potential for Maersk, he added.

Clerc said that China had gained market share on the world stage by having its own companies going global, particularly in sectors such as chemicals, telecommunications, computers and vehicles. But Clerc noted that this was not being factored in to shipping forecast models.

The rise of US tariffs has also had a significant effect on container line services. Maersk’s China-US box volumes dropped by around 35% in the second quarter.

“What we’re seeing through the US trade war is a redrawing of the global supply chain,” Clerc said. “Shippers are focused on managing their existing supply chains, but they will need to reflect on what will be the supply chain of the future.”

Earlier this week, Maersk was reported to have communicated to its customers that it was ending its only direct container line service from the US to South Africa. All cargoes are instead going to be routed via transhipment hubs in Europe.

Maersk is said to have attributed the end of the direct service to “operational restructuring” and “global supply chain realignments”.

Clerc argues that new trade agreements should provide more certainty for shippers, which have been able to adapt to numerous changes in the past four years following the pandemic.

“Covid provided an incredibly good training ground for how to deal with supply chain disruptions,” said Clerc, who noted that US tariffs would inevitably have an impact on cargo volumes, provide higher inflation and increase prices for consumers.

He added that it would take some time for tariffs to work their way through, but US tariffs were the highest seen since the 1930s.

“While volumes are losing steam in North America, the rest of the world has been resilient, which is very positive to see,” Clerc said. “But it would be a mistake to believe that supply chains will return to where they were.”

Supply chain adjustments this year, resulting in changes to Maersk’s container line network, were able to be effectively handled due to its new partnership in the Gemini Cooperation, a collaboration with German container line operator Hapag-Lloyd that commenced in February.

“Gemini has provided for far more flexibility compared to our previous network. We can adjust capacity faster and in a much more flexible way, meaning we can maintain capacity more in line with actual demand,” noted Clerc.

The Gemini Cooperation is based around hub-and-spoke service networks, rather than the direct call focused services of Maersk’s previous “2M” alliance with Mediterranean Shipping Co.

“Having shuttle services via hubs helped us weather second-quarter volatility in the transpacific trade when volumes dropped by 35%. We could swing the capacity at will and ensured Gemini customers had less disruption,” said Clerc.

The Gemini Cooperation network was fully in place by June. According to Sea Intelligence, Gemini has maintained a 90% schedule reliability.

Clerc said that the improved schedule reliability was helping Maersk reduce costs by reducing vessel fuel consumption, and enabled improved vessel capacity intensity.

“Slot costs are down as a result of Gemini. Because of better utilisation we can load more volumes on the same size vessel fleet,” said Clerc.