Global shipping is a behemoth of an industry. It has a direct and indirect economic impact of more than $400 billion annually, and more than $4 trillion worth of goods move by sea freight each year. But it's also a delicate sector, closely tied to the health of major economies, prone to cyclic swings and vulnerable to the world's reaction or overreaction to any number of political events. The Shipping Industry's Comeback A decade after the global financial crash precipitated a crippling overcapacity crisis, the global shipping sector has been struggling to recover. Since of the start of 2018, though, things have been looking up. With supply and demand in better balance, idle capacity figures (which indicate the percentage of ships and containers that sit unused) have dropped from the 2016-2017 winter high of 8.8 percent to just 1 percent.