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Maersk Line has highlighted the fact that India has greatly expanded its container trade in 2017 and will continue to do so. The current situation is highly beneficial to the country’s trade after it went through a series of ups and downs for two whole years. According to the exclusive Maersk report on India’s trade growth that has been recently released, India has been able to outpace several of the large economies in the world. In fact, the upcoming market economy in 2018 has the strong potential to acquire a steep growth in freight despite the disruptions caused by supply chains due to the current tax and regulatory reforms in our country. Maersk is now responsible for transporting around 20% of India’s total amount of container cargo. The brilliant performance as recorded in 2017 is an example of the equity shared by India with its global trade partners. As the local markets will soon reach a more stable situation, the Maersk Line believes that the growth factor will gather more momentum in the near future and the organization will try its best to encourage it when it happens. As per the data analyzed in Maersk’s Q1 2018 India Trade Report, the containerized trade in India has already started off the New Year on a good note with an overall Q1 increase of 11%. The successful import of dry cargo is the driving factor behind this achievement. This positive result can be attributed to the subsequent increase in dry bulk imports and of course, a weak rupee. This major growth was achieved mainly due to the imports of recyclable substances like metal and paper, the growth percentages of which were recorded at 55% and 61% respectively. Europe and North America are declared as the main sources of the above-mentioned imports. The Maersk Line Managing Director for India, Mr Steve Felder, is of the opinion that these figures become more applicable when they are observed through a global lens. Mr Felder said that the numbers are much higher than the estimated demand of the global containerized growth of 3-4%. With respect to the effects of demonetization that struck our country in 2016, the recyclable commodity imports were subjected to changes. However, it can be clearly assumed that the domestic consumption is steadily rising after the initial impact has gradually faded away. Moreover, China has decided to multiply the restrictions on waste paper imports and this has greatly affected India in a beneficial manner. This is because India happens to be a major importer for the local recycled manufacturing of paper. Hence, these significant developments in the import category have led to its continued growth in 2017. Coming to the scenario of exports, India’s exports have also experienced a sudden growth after an 18% increase in demand for its vehicles, which was possible because of the truckload of orders from Latin Africa and Africa. Plus, UAE and UK have recently increased the demand for fruit and nut and this has, in turn, has caused a 7% rise in the total export growth. But it should be taken into consideration that not all of the regions in the country had contributed to the rise of the export growth. Reportedly, East India has not been able to increase its demand for rice and metal and it has dropped by 6%, this year. This is in stark contrast to the increment by 29% in exports, back in 2017. The Maersk Report states that if we just focus on the first quarter of 2018, it has proved to be quite a constructive phase for export growth in India. Regarding the various changes observed in the export category, Mr Steve Felder has commented that India can harness the potential to constantly improve with its ascending domestic consumption. Moreover, the effect of a weaker rupee fueled the country’s export capacity. As mentioned earlier, the rice exports and the metal exports were not able to perform well in the extremely competitive, global markets. The decline was more visible in metal exports like pipes and Ferro. Since the domestic consumption is going through a positive development, commodities are in a hurry to find suitable markets. Hopefully, the commodities will find a lot of takers in the country. Owing to the increasing longing of the country’s population will definitely ensure that this growing trend will survive for a long period, given that there are no unpredictable policy changes. In Maersk’s report, Mr Felder has also thrown light on another important aspect. He believes that the supreme trading companies like US and China fighting over their trade relations, newly prominent economies like India can experience a smooth flow in selected trade commodities. Mr Felder has asserted the observation that external factors have helped in boosting the global trade in India.