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Mr Barack Obama’s election victory has been acclaimed worldwide but not much is known as yet about his economic priorities. It can be assumed that maritime and transport issues will not be high on the agenda. Shipping is almost invisible to most Americans even as the shipowners in the US are required to cope with a wide variety of, often inconsistent, State and Federal rules. What is accepted in one port is illegal in the next, once a State border is crossed. More im portant, an estimated 70 per cent importers, when questioned for a survey, say they are not yet prepared for the new security regulations due to be enforced from the first quarter of 2009 as they do not know yet how to recover the additional costs to be incurred for compliance with new regulations. There are also reservations about 100 per cent screening of containers arriving at the US ports in view of the huge costs involved. Meanwhile, while speaking at the World Shipping Summit in China recently, Morgan Stanley’s Asia chief urged the US President-elect to focus on encouraging free trade, globalisation and forging a strategic alliance with China to revive the US economy, and with it, the global economy.

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