Ships move the world – A film portrait of the industry

Life would look very different without the shipping industry. A lot of the food we consume, pharmaceuticals, clothes and consumer goods would only be available in limited supply, as roughly 90 percent of global trade is transported by ship. Around 1.7 million seafarers and over 61,000 vessels make this possible every day. Thanks to them, we don’t run out of what we need. This is the main message of a new, brief film released by BIMCO, the largest international association representing shipowners.

Even during the COVID-19 pandemic, seafarers have continued to keep shelves stocked and goods available to be delivered to our households. Nevertheless, they have still not been classified as key workers. Travel and other restrictions imposed in response to the pandemic have disrupted the system of crew changes. Hundreds of thousands of seafarers are still stranded on ships or in ports, where their colleagues cannot travel to relieve them. Together with other shipping companies and organisations, Hapag-Lloyd already drew international attention to this precarious situation in July 2020. But little has changed yet. In fact, many governments have even tightened travel restrictions to safeguard their populations from the virus.

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The brief film portrait aims to help give decision-makers and the public fresh perspectives on and a deeper understanding of the shipping industry – and hopefully to facilitate crew changes as a result. BIMCO deliberately kept the film neutral, as it would like as many industry representatives or other interested parties as possible to use, share and disseminate it.

You can join in, too, by watching it yourself: Ships make the world go