SIR, With or without the financial crisis, the shipping industry today is characterised by an oversupply of tonnage ('New ships for old', Fairplay 7 May, p41). In a free market, the only rule determining the market is the balance between supply and demand of tonnage, whose match gives the freight level, and the freight received by the owner has to be able to cover the cost of the vessel in terms of depreciation. There are two ways to rebalance an oversupply situation: increasing the demand byrnenhancing trade volumes, or decreasing the supply, reducing the number of vessels and improving their quality. Obviously, we can only try the latter.
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