Review of Maritime Transport
Also called: UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport, RMT · Topic: International Trade: Patterns, Ports and the WTO · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Review of Maritime Transport (RMT) is a yearly report on world shipping. It is published by UNCTAD (the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), a UN body that studies trade and development. The report gathers data on seaborne trade (goods carried by ship), the world fleet of ships, freight costs and how well ports work. It matters because ships carry more than 80% of the goods traded worldwide by volume. The report is the standard source for anyone who wants to see how that trade is changing.
Example
The 2021 edition, kept in the UN Digital Library, looked at how COVID-19 disrupted shipping and supply chains. Supply chains are the steps that move goods from the factory to the buyer. A student writing about why East Asian ports such as Shanghai and Singapore lead container traffic can use the RMT for data on fleets and port traffic.
Don't confuse with
- Lloyd's List: a private shipping news service that publishes the yearly ranking of the busiest container ports. The RMT is a UN report that covers all of maritime trade, not only port rankings.
- WTO trade statistics: these give the value of world trade in goods and services by every mode of transport. The RMT deals only with trade by sea.