There are bigger shipping choke points than Suez

When traffic through the Suez Canal ground to a halt in 2021, the extraordinary cost and disruptions to global commerce seemed overwhelming. But 8000 kilometres from the canals of Suez and Panama lie even more important shipping lanes, choke points that could cripple global trade should any disaster befall them.

More than a quarter of goods transport passes through a 40-kilometre wide stretch of water that separates Indonesia to the south-west from Singapore and Malaysia to the north-east, known as the Malacca Strait. By value, the 27.9 per cent of merchandise sent around the world that traverses this body of water far exceeds the 16.6 per cent that move along the Suez Canal in Egypt, according to research by Professor Lincoln Pratson at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment.

Bloomberg Opinion