The half-year health check on the state of the maritime markets finds shipowners in a better place than they anticipated 12 months ago. While tankers will have to wait for a meaningful vaccine-led recovery, box and bulk are booming.

In the first five months of 2020, the total value of mutual trade between the EU and China carried out by railway transport, increased by 21.22% year-on-year (47.42% more in May than in January 2020) . This development allowed rail transport to increase its share in the total trade volume from 2.83% in January-May 2019 to 3.47% in January-May 2020.