{"id":173427,"date":"2025-11-10T17:01:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T17:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/173427\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T17:01:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T17:01:11","slug":"where-are-the-choke-points-in-global-trade-and-can-they-be-overcome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/173427\/","title":{"rendered":"Where are the \u2018choke points\u2019 in global trade \u2013 and can they be overcome?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">While this year has been a watershed for global trade \u2013 with the first half of 2025 bringing with it a US$500 billion expansion in value, according to UN Trade and Development \u2013 many countries are forging new economic pathways in response to rapid, unpredictable shifts in geopolitics, heightened protectionism and extreme weather events influenced by climate change.<\/p>\n<p>In a recent report from Allianz Trade, the insurer predicted that in 2026 and 2027, the year-on-year global growth of <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/economy\/china-economy\/article\/3331863\/chinas-exports-fall-october-trade-war-takes-toll?module=top_story&amp;pgtype=section?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">trade of goods and services is set to slow<\/a> to 0.6 per cent and 1.8 per cent, respectively \u2013 a decline compared with the 2 per cent observed for 2025 so far \u2013 highlighting the delayed impact of the trade war and the limitations of current trade infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In this explainer, the Post examines these \u201clegacy\u201d trade routes, their choke points and what new routes could bypass or surmount them, based on the Allianz analysis released last week.<\/p>\n<p><strong data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa17\">What are the choke points in global trade routes?<\/strong>Among the old routes \u2013 which carry 50 to 60 per cent of the global merchandise trade, according to Allianz \u2013 the Suez and <a target=\"_self\" class=\"e1yy41x40 ef9u0v01 css-1ankfgb ecgc78b0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/news\/china\/diplomacy\/article\/3321555\/china-accuses-us-using-lies-pretext-seeking-control-panama-canal?module=inline&amp;pgtype=article\" title=\"\" data-qa=\"BaseLink-renderAnchor-StyledAnchor\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Panama canals<\/a> top the list of high-risk choke points, constrained by congestion and limited redundancy, according to a proprietary scorecard provided in the report.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Before the Covid-19 pandemic, oil prices were the main driver of container freight rates, said Ana Boata, the head of economic research at Allianz and lead analyst for the report, but now geopolitics is taking primacy.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cAsia and Europe\u2019s hubs are increasingly at risk of political or climate shocks \u2013 Asian hubs lead on capacity and reliability but face mounting political risk; Europe\u2019s ports boast strong infrastructure and redundancy but rising climate exposure, particularly in the south,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cMidway hubs, from the Middle East to Southern Africa, act as efficiency anchors yet remain vulnerable to political and environmental stress. In the Americas, reliability is high, but capacity tightens along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Global trade depends on a limited number of strategic corridors and choke points, which are narrow passages or logistical hubs that concentrate flows of energy, food and manufactured goods, such as the Suez and Panama Canals, air freight hubs like Hong Kong International Airport and inland connectors linking ports, railways and roads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While this year has been a watershed for global trade \u2013 with the first half of 2025 bringing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[174],"tags":[98917,98919,2786,22081,79,381,442,179,18,1015,8948,98921,19,17,13482,6093,8820,98918,98920],"class_list":{"0":"post-173427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-allianz-trade","9":"tag-ana-boata","10":"tag-asia","11":"tag-belt-and-road-initiative","12":"tag-business","13":"tag-china","14":"tag-climate-change","15":"tag-economy","16":"tag-eire","17":"tag-europe","18":"tag-global-south","19":"tag-hong-kong-international-airport","20":"tag-ie","21":"tag-ireland","22":"tag-kazakhstan","23":"tag-malaysia","24":"tag-middle-east","25":"tag-panama-canals","26":"tag-suez"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115526479759235586","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}