Global Shipping’s Chokepoints

By Katharina Buchholz – Statista

With more and more shipping companies extending full or partial closures of Red Sea shipping routes due to attacks by Yemeni rebels, global trade could be seriously affected. According to a new analysis based on 2019 data published in academic journal Communications in Transportation Research, 22-23 percent of maritime-traded goods between non-neighboring countries pass through the Red Sea, more specifically its chokepoints Bab-el-Mandeb and the Suez Canal. Other estimates even put the share of seaborne cargo passing through the area as high as 30 percent.