MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Liberia becomes the world's largest ship registry; in bulk carriers, China is the flag

The Liberian flag now has a 2.2m gt lead over Panama at the top of the registry rankings, its fleet growing by 5.6% so far this year, according to Clarksons

For the first time in 30 years Panama is no longer the world’s largest ship registry. Rival Liberia has overhauled the Central American nation in terms of gross tonnage in new data issued by Clarksons Research.

The Liberian flag now has a 2.2m gt lead over Panama at the top of the registry rankings, its fleet growing by 5.6% so far this year, according to Clarksons. In terms of the number of ships on their books, Panama retains a healthy lead of more than 3,200 ships.

Looking at the list of the top 30 flags, the big losers in the year to date have been Malta and Cyprus, likely as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine, while the flag that has grown the most in percentage terms by some distance has been Germany, a nation that is showing signs of having finally thrown off the maritime shackles that has dogged growth for more than a decade.

In related news, to date, a total of 96,804 bulk carriers sail the world’s oceans, with China’s flag being the most used, according to data provided by MarineTraffic.

The flag of the East Asian nation is flown by 65.9% of ships of this type, which is equivalent to 63,838 ships.

In the same way, Panama-registered vessels follow in second place with 3,834 vessels, the Netherlands in third place with 2,669 motor vessels, Liberia in fourth place with 2,272 and the Marshall Islands in fifth place with 2,079.

In addition, the site dedicated to providing real-time information on the movements and location of maritime transport makes the five main ports of origin – according to bulk carrier departures – Port Hedland (Australia), Tianjin (China), Shanghai (China), Kaohsiung (Taiwan) and Terneuzen (Netherlands).

Finally, the top five bulk carriers in the world are Sea Beijing, Sea Qingdao and Sea Indonesia with the capacity to carry 404,389 DWT, followed by Sea Maranhao with 403,844 DWT and Sea Fujiyama with 403,811 DWT.