China has assumed control of a strategic Pakistani port on the Arabian Sea, as part of a drive to secure energy and maritime routes that also gives it a potential naval base, sparking Indian concern. The Pakistani cabinet approved the transfer of Gwadar, currently a commercial failure cut off from the national road network, from Singapore's PSA International to the state-owned China company on January 30.

A.P. Moller-Maersk relied on higher freight rates and cost reduction schemes to lift fourth-quarter profit, but modest growth expectations and concerns about pricing has the Danish shipping conglomerate relying increasingly less on mature shipping markets and turning the focus to emerging markets and its oil business.

What's been keeping tax directors of large multinational corporations up at night recently? The same issue that provided millions of dollars in tax relief a few years before: transfer pricing.

As talks are announced regarding a potential free-trade agreement between the two continental powers, which could simplify and revolutionize the €450 per annum trans-Atlantic trade there are rumblings in UK freight forwarding circles that another agreement, potentially a precursor to the main agreement and involving the security concerns when shipping goods between the partners, does not appear to hold all that it originally seemed to promise.

Shell, BP, Maersk, Stena and the Japanese shipping companies NYK, MOL and "K" Line have announced their joint collaboration with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to support job creation and capacity building projects in Somalia.

DB Schenker Logistics says it has started building a 23.5m euro ($32m) logistics centre in Rudna u Prahy, close to the Czech capital of Prague. The 90,800-square-metre terminal has been designed to meet the most advanced technological, safety and environmental requirements, the company says.