Shipping is an important part of international trade. About 80% and 70% of the global trade in goods is done by sea. According to the different forms of transportation of goods, the international shipping market can be divided into container transport market, dry bulk cargo transport market and tanker transport market. According to the report of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), at the beginning of 2019, the global total transport capacity was 1.97 billion deadweight tons, of which dry bulk cargo transport accounted for 42.6%, which is the largest mode of transport; The international oil transport market and container transport accounted for 28.7% respectively. China is a major importer and exporter in the world, and about 90% of its export trade is completed by container transportation.

According to the different modes of transport organization, the international shipping market can be divided into scheduled ship transport (liner transport) and non-scheduled ship transport (charter transport). Container transportation generally adopts liner transportation, dry bulk cargo and tanker transportation adopts irregular transportation.

Liner transport refers to the international maritime transport of goods, the shipper will be a certain number of goods entrusted to the shipping company as a carrier, the shipping company along a fixed route in a fixed port, according to a fixed shipping schedule and fixed freight (" four fixed "is the basic feature). The participants of liner transport include liner companies, freight forwarders, shippers and shippers.

Container transport refers to a new and effective mode of transport, with the container as the carrier, the goods are assembled into container units, so as to use large loading and unloading machinery and large carrying vehicles in the field of modern circulation to load and unload operations, complete the transportation task, and better achieve the transportation of goods.