There is no getting around the fact that weak economic growth in China has impacted the dry cargo freight market in 2025. But the BDI has still improved from a low of 892 points average in February to 2,576 so far in December. The freight market has proven to be resilient, led by demand from India, the Middle East and a resurgent Atlantic freight market. The big problem is China’s steel industry which is now past its peak and faces a long, slow decline as the pace of urbanisation and industrialisation slows at home and as overseas markets, particularly the US and the EU, impose trade and emissions barriers on Chinese steel exports. China’s steel production this year is unlikely to exceed 1bn tonnes, falling back to 2019 levels, after 897m tonnes of output in the opening 11 months of the year Meanwhile, iron ore imports may rise to a record high of 1.25bn tonnes compared to 1.24bn tonnes in 2024. The discrepancy, some analysts say, is due to miners shipping lower iron-content fines to China, which means an extra 70m to 80m tonnes, or 350 to 400 newcastlemax cargoes. China has also been rebuilding port inventories this year when iron ore market prices dip below $105 per tonne. This led to a Q4 surge in chartering activity and TCEs for capesizes. What was less expected was a surge in Atlantic activity as European steel makers awoke from a decade-long slumber in the rush to rebuild armaments production. The sudden lift-off in demand for Brazilian ores helped to push the Atlantic round voyage up to over $71,000 per day on December 5 for a capesize, with the Baltic Exchange 5TC rising to a two-year peak of $44,672 on December 3. However, the year to date average of capesize earnings remains at $19,674 with only a few days left to get over $20,000, when the 2024 average was $23,200 and the 2023 average was $25,691. Coal shipments look set for a 5% fall year-on-year, the first fall since the lockdown year of 2020. The fall is all in thermal coal with metallurgical coal shipments steady at around 350m tonnes. Chinese thermal coal imports so far this year are down around 10% for January to November this year at 328m tonnes, with November’s 31m tonnes imports exceeding 29m tonnes in October this year but falling short of 38m tonnes in November last year. Thermal coal imports to India for January to November were 204m tonnes, down around 5% year-on-year, though up 0.6m tonnes month-on-month. India is to continue building coal fired power plants all the way into the 2040s but, crucially, these are to be supplied with domestically mined coal, assuming that it becomes available. Indonesia, which supplies around two-fifths of global thermal coal, faces a weak market for 2026, with the IEA predicting a 35m tonnes fall in its exports. That would reduce shipping demand by 500 panamax bulk cargoes of 70,000 dwt each. The second largest exporter, Australia, could suffer a proportionally similar decline in exports. China is growing more food at home and importing less, having squashed corn imports from 23m tonnes in 2023/24 to less than 7m tonnes for this year. Wheat imports are likely to be only around 12m tonnes for the year, and barley imports were down 40% year-on-year in January to August at around 8.5m tonnes. China’s soya bean imports were up 7% for January to November this year at 104m tonnes, boosted by the recent China-US trade deal adding 12m tonnes this year to the total of 75m tonnes from Brazil and 5m tonnes from Argentina. It is thus no surpri