Our Euro-centric attitudes to trade hold us back

If you're a regular reader of this blog you know I have a somewhat obsessive fixation with the shipping industry. That's because it's so far reaching significance and a huge indicator of the extent of global governance. If you're watching the shipping industry and the connected issues you can learn a lot about global trade and the implications therein.

You would assume that with so much depending on smooth operations and unimpeded supply chains that things would be a good deal more harmonised than they are - and you would also assume that this would be cutting edge technology led. It isn't. Not by a long shot.

So much so that we are starting to see the likes of Amazon moving into shipping. They have identified the sector as the weak link in the chain, and since they have vertically integrated logistics on land and in the air, why should they not look to the seas? As much as there are physical barriers to trade there is a world of technical barriers still to be addressed. 

The latest row to hit the sector is over the new container weight regulations requiring shippers to provide the verified gross mass of all export containers points to a chaotic rollout of the rule when enforcement begins in July.