Shipping Industry Trims Its Sails for Sluggish Global Trade

Container shipping companies face a challenging couple of years, but it shouldn’t be as bad as the decade-long doldrums the industry endured in the aftermath of the Great Recession.

That was the view Thursday from Rolf Habben Jansen, the head of Hapag-Lloyd, the world’s No. 5 container carrier. Business is going to be difficult for two to three years, he said as the Hamburg-based company announced quarterly earnings.