The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic process on ship chartering and activities

Today, maritime transport is the most used mode of transport. Today, more than 80% of world trade is carried out by sea. Sea freight demand is derived demand that is directly affected by economic cycles and international trade. Throughout history, long and short-term economic cycles have been encountered at certain periods. The Covid-19 pandemic which emerged on December 1, 2019 in the Wuhan region of the People's Republic of China, was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, 2021, as the pandemic began to be effective all over the world. The coronavirus epidemic has affected the whole world in terms of global economy and health. It has put the maritime sector in trouble, as it does in most sectors. Many precautions have been taken by many countries to prevent the pandemic. Countries also started to take some precautions against ships coming to their ports. In addition to this, some question marks started to appear in the terms of the carriage contract for chartering. In this study, it has been tried to explain the factors affecting the general operation and profitability of ship chartering and brokerage activities during the coronavirus pandemic.