Shipping Carries More than 90 Percent of World Trade. The world fleet of merchant ships and tankers provide the means of transport of every conceivable type of product: grain, crude oil, coal and gas, iron ore, bauxite/alumina and other raw materials, chemicals, fertilisers, vast amounts of foodstuff s, timber and construction materials without which the world economy would come to a standstill. The globalization of the world economy has seen a huge growth in the volume of the international seaborne trade, in bulk or in containers. …