It is predicted that the world GDP growth rate will remain between 3% and 4% in the next three to five years. According to the basic relationship between economic growth and the annual growth rate of world trade, it is estimated that the annual growth rate of world trade should be around 6% in the next three to five years. Looking forward to the future world economic situation, I believe that after the Asian financial crisis, the Asian economy has achieved initial results in economic reform and structural adjustment, and its ability to resist economic slowdown and external shocks has been significantly enhanced, and it will continue to maintain a relatively fast growth rate. Because of the good economic foundation, the American economy will strengthen after the impact of the "9. 1 1" incident is eliminated. The highly internationalized international shipping industry will have a more relaxed business environment and will further develop and expand in the field of world trade. The competition in the shipping industry is becoming more and more fierce. With the acceleration of economic globalization, multinational companies are constantly establishing their own production bases around the world. The investment, production and operation of multinational companies in the world will lead to an increase in the supply of suitable containers such as manufactured goods and high value-added industrial manufactured goods, so that container transportation will continue to maintain rapid growth for quite some time to come. With the development of high-tech represented by information technology, the world economy is changing from industrial economy to knowledge economy, which will inevitably lead to the adjustment of industrial structure, thus affecting shipping demand. In international trade, the technical content of commodities is constantly improving, the requirements for transportation are also constantly improving, and the capacity structure will change accordingly. High-tech container transportation, liquefied gas and chemical transportation will have better market prospects. From the appearance of steam engine to the wide application of computer and the development of information technology, shipbuilding has always been the main industry to track the world's advanced technology. Computer information technology, modern communication mode, new material technology and new energy technology were all put into shipbuilding, port construction and international shipping soon after it came into being. I believe there will be more high-tech applications on ships in the future. Due to the fierce competition of various modes of transportation, the time requirements for service objects are getting higher and higher, the public pays more attention to safety and prevention of marine pollution, and the efforts of ship operators to reduce costs, it is decided that ship technology will develop in the direction of large-scale, specialization, intelligence, rapidity and good anti-pollution performance in the 2 1 century. Timely, accurate and comprehensive service is the main trend of shipping industry development. Customers are increasingly demanding the service level and quality of shipping companies, and strongly demand that shipping companies can provide faster, more reliable, more convenient and more flexible supply chain management, and further require carriers to provide so-called "seamless services", providing a complete transportation service system from packaging, land transportation, container transportation, sea transportation, customs declaration, subcontracting to land transportation and delivery, and monitoring all point-to-point transportation processes. The competition in the shipping industry will become more and more fierce. Enterprises participating in the competition include not only liner companies, but also intermediary agents and inland transportation enterprises. In order to gain advantages and success in the future environment, we must ensure that its service level can not only meet the basic requirements, but also provide value-added services, and at the same time, it has a leading position in information system and logistics management technology. China's shipping industry has a rare opportunity to integrate into the world economic system, which will bring a rare opportunity to China's shipping industry. First, the obvious improvement of the political and economic environment at home and abroad is conducive to the further development of China's foreign trade, and the transportation demand will increase substantially, providing sufficient supply for the development of the shipping industry. Second, the strengthening of transportation infrastructure construction and the expansion of foreign capital utilization will further improve the technical level of transportation infrastructure and transportation equipment such as ports and waterways, and greatly accelerate the modernization of China's ports and shipping. Third, China's shipping marketization process will be accelerated, and the market competition mechanism will be continuously improved, which is conducive to improving the overall service level of China's shipping industry and improving the international competitiveness of shipping enterprises. China's shipping industry is facing challenges: First, China is in the period of economic restructuring, with imperfect laws and regulations, imperfect market mechanism, and a waterway transportation management system that is compatible with WTO rules has not really been established. Efforts should be made to create a good competitive environment for Chinese and foreign shipping operators. Second, there is still a certain gap between China port and shipping enterprises and developed countries in terms of financial strength, technical level and management talents, and their competitiveness is not strong. Third, some aspects of China's water transport infrastructure are still very weak, and the contradiction of unreasonable structure is very prominent. Ports and waterways can not meet the needs of the development of large ships, and the task of water transport infrastructure construction is quite arduous. The structure of transport capacity will be gradually improved, and the reform and opening up will gradually bring China's international shipping market into line with the world market, which has greatly promoted the development of China's shipping industry. China ship structure is gradually optimized. The number of ships has decreased from more than 370,000 to 260,000, the deadweight tonnage of ships has increased from more than 30 million deadweight tons to 50 million deadweight tons, and the fleet engaged in international trade and transportation has grown to more than 37 million deadweight tons. Some international shipping companies have been optimized and reorganized, and a number of container ships and special ships representing the world's advanced level have joined China's fleet. COSCO Container Fleet ranks seventh among the top 20 liners in the world, and COSCO, China Shipping and Sinotrans have become the main fleets of international shipping in China. Port construction should be strengthened to meet the needs of international shipping industry and China's foreign trade and transportation, which greatly promotes the construction of coastal ports. There are more than 2,000 ports with an annual throughput of more than 10,000 tons, including more than 30 ports/kloc-0, which accept more than 62,400 ships from more than 100 countries and regions every year. There are more than 780 deep-water berths above 10,000 tons in major ports in Jianghai. In 2000, the throughput of major ports in China was nearly 2.2 billion tons, of which the foreign trade throughput was nearly 600 million tons. The lack of port capacity in China has been initially alleviated, but the structural contradictions are very prominent and cannot meet the needs of future international trade development. A new round of port construction and structural adjustment will start at the beginning of this century. Container transportation will flourish. China's container transportation started late, but it developed rapidly. The container throughput of China Port has maintained a growth rate of more than 25% for 12 years, and exceeded 25 million TEUs in 2000. There are 300 international liner routes from the ports in Chinese mainland, with more than 3,000 flights every month. Seven ports in Chinese mainland have exceeded100000 TEU. With the gradual expansion of trade and the improvement of container transportation level, China has great potential to develop container transportation. 2/KLOC-The adjustment direction of China's shipping policy in the 20th century will definitely promote the opening of the shipping market to the outside world and gradually integrate with international rules. Facing the opportunities and challenges brought by WTO and economic globalization, we will speed up the legislative process, cultivate market mechanism, speed up the pace of transportation infrastructure construction, strive to create a good competitive environment for Chinese and foreign shipping enterprises, establish and improve a unified, open and competitive waterway transportation market, and promote the sustained, rapid and healthy development of China waterway transportation industry. Accelerate the construction of shipping infrastructure and provide good port services for Chinese and foreign shipping operators. China will continue to strengthen the construction of water transport infrastructure such as ports and waterways. It is necessary to continue to strengthen the construction of major hub ports, develop regional important ports accordingly, moderately build local small and medium-sized ports, and gradually expand the functions of modern ports with modern integrated logistics as the core. It is necessary to vigorously improve the navigation conditions of major rivers and major hub ports, speed up the construction of berths for large-scale deep-water terminals for containers and bulk cargo, and adapt to the development trend of large-scale and professional international shipping vessels. Focus on the construction and transformation of container hub ports, and develop feeder ports and feed ports accordingly. It is necessary to speed up the construction of port supporting facilities and functional development, so that the port area will gradually form an industrial, commercial and logistics center. Accelerate scientific and technological innovation, optimize the structure of the shipping industry, promote shipping development to adapt to the development trend of the international shipping market, and encourage scientific and technological innovation. Actively promote the structural adjustment of the shipping industry. First, speed up the structural adjustment of ship capacity, promote the development of ocean-going and coastal ships in the direction of large-scale, specialization and high-speed, and focus on the development of large bulk carriers, large oil tankers, container ships, liquefied gas carriers and automobile ro-ro ships; Promote the development of inland river ships in the direction of standardization and serialization, focusing on the development of inland river self-propelled ships, pusher fleets, river-sea direct ships and container ships; Second, speed up the adjustment of transportation structure, promote the development of conventional waterway passenger transport in the direction of high speed, tourism, passenger rolling and regionalization, promote the specialized transportation system of bulk goods such as coal, oil, grain and mine, improve the average tonnage of ships and develop large-scale transportation; The third is to speed up the structural adjustment of shipping enterprises and encourage shipping enterprises to develop in a large scale and group. Actively promote the development of modern logistics. The development of logistics in China is still in the primary stage, and its market potential and development prospect are very broad. As a distribution center for materials, ports have special advantages in developing logistics. With the rapid development of international maritime container transportation, container transit freight stations have been established around ports and international shipping, the port collection and distribution system and electronic data exchange system have been gradually improved, and the conditions for building a port city into a logistics center are basically mature. We encourage Chinese and foreign shipping companies to participate in the logistics service market competition as soon as possible according to their own reality, and provide high-quality transportation services for the development of China's international trade.