It could seem obvious to say that we live in a globalized world and is true that international trade between all the nations and regions of the world is not a new phenomenon. Since the Phoenician civilization, passing through Egyptians, Greeks and Cartaginese, Chinese, Vikings, Spaniard, Portuguese, Italians, British, Frenchmen, Dutches, Polynesians and Celts, the history of the world is the history of explorations, conquests and sea commerce. (BAUSCH, 2001)
No doubt we enter into a new age of world-wide interdependence and without any possibility of return. In this today’s world, national borders consider only very few obstacles to multinationals corporations: in Europe they not only sell but also mount automobiles of marks from countries of the Distant East, whereas in North America are mounted and sold products from European marks.
On another side, diverse “occidental” company of the energy sector invest millions of dollars in the Distant East and other parts of Asia and adopt strategies and decisions on investments that can affect millions of people. (BOTTER, 2006)
The brilliant executive people of the business world can cross the seas in only few hours and communicate by e-mail and telephone while they travel. In the financial markets, commercial runners and operators had eliminated the restrictions imposed for the hourly spindles and distance and now they accede to the world markets with their computers.
In the XXI century, emergent sectors, as manufacture of software, the medias and the fashion business, had done without the geographic dimension and they do not recognize physical limits. In the world of the consumption of today, there are marks that are recognized, preferred and valued in all parts of the world. (BOYKIN, 1995)
Globalization process and the factors that had allowed the evolution of this mechanic had been recognized in 2000 by the General Secretary of United Nations, Kofi Annan, that designated: World opening made possible the gradual destruction of the barriers that obstacles the commerce and mobility of capital, beyond the basic technological advances and constant reduction of the cost of transports, communications and computation. Its agglutinant logic seems inexorable, its impulse, irresistible.
If we retrace in the time, we can find the stages through which we advance until arriving at this new world-wide order. There was a time where to each community, basic materials and the more important products and markets were basically local.
However, when increasing the relation between communities, commerce was growing and started to appear a degree of specialization in the regions, frequently based in availability of determined prime substances or in a set of specialized knowledge or great demand, acquired to the long of years.
According to Brown (1996), as long as the world was been developed, proximity to prime substances sources and markets converted into the factor that, more than others, gave form to world-wide economy and, in particular, to the main commercial guidelines and routes of navigation.
With the step of the time there had been establishing the great routes of maritime transport: coal of Australia, southern Africa and the North America to Europe and the Distant East; grains from the North America and the south to Asia, Africa and the Distant East; ore of iron from South America and Australia to Europe and the Distant East; hydro-carbons from the Middle East, Africa, South America and Caribbean region to Europe, North America and Asia, and now we must add the products manufactured carried in containers since China, Japan and the Southeast of Asia to the consumers of the Western Hemisphere.
The world-wide commerce allowed a bigger access to an enormous variety of resources, with what a bigger distribution of the common wealth of our planet was facilitated.
Nowadays, international trade evolved until a point that no nation can be allowed to be self-sufficient. All the countries participate, with different levels, in the process of selling what they produce and to acquire what they lack: none can depend on its proper resources. (CASPERS, 2002)
World-wide commerce generated interdependence and interconnection between people who previously would have considered that they did not have connection.
All the potential benefits are clear: growth can be sped up and specialized prosperity to have a bigger reach, knowledge and technology can arrive in every part of the world, and in such a way people as countries can be benefited with economic chances that previously would have been unimaginable.
BAUSCH, D.O.; BROWN, G.G.; RONEN, D., Elastic set partitioning – A powerful tool for scheduling transportation of oil and gas. Monografias sobre Advances in Operations Research in the Oil and Gas Industry. e.technip, p. 151-162, 2001.
BOTTER, R. C., Relatório sobre a navegação de cabotagem no Brasil, TCC e Monografia EPUSP, 2006.
BOYKIN, R.F.; LEVARY, R.R., An interative decision support system for analyzing ship voyage alternatives. Monografia Interfaces. v.15, p.81-84, 1995.
BROWN, G.G.;GRAVES,G.W.;RONEN,D.,Scheduling ocean transportation of crude oil. Monografia Management Science. v.33, p. 335-346, 1997. AD Monografias e Pesquisa de Base para TCC em Transporte
CASPERS, F.N.; BRUGGE, R. Logistic Requirements and Shortsea Shipping. In: TCC - European Shortsea Shipping, London, p.40-51, 2002.
