After a successful year in 2024, when container shipments showed steady growth, the market faced a noticeable cooling in 2025. According to preliminary estimates, in the first seven months of this year, the volume of container traffic decreased by 5% compared to the same period last year. The main reasons for the decline are a decrease in the volume of domestic shipments and imports.
The domestic directions sank most significantly — by 15%. Import shipments decreased by 7%. Experts explain this by a combination of factors: a slowdown in economic activity, a high key interest rate, difficulty in obtaining financing, a decrease in consumer demand, as well as the freezing of investment projects, especially in industry. An additional factor was the large inventory in warehouses accumulated since last year, and competition with trucking logistics.
The decline in passenger car transportation is particularly noticeable — their volume has dropped fourfold. This is due to an increase in recycling, a decrease in the availability of car loans and overcrowding of warehouses with unsold products," said Ksenia Klimko, director of the Business Consulting platform Technologies of Trust.
In domestic transportation, the areas of ferrous metals and mineral raw materials suffered the most. The reason is a decrease in the pace of construction and investment activity.
Nevertheless, exports remained positive. In the first seven months of 2025, it increased by 7%. The growth was driven by shipments of non—ferrous metals to China, ferrous metals and lumber to Turkey, as well as chemical goods, including rubber, polymers and polyethylene, to Uzbekistan and other countries.
According to Klimko, special hopes are pinned on the further development of exports of non—ferrous metals and mineral fertilizers - these categories may become growth points in the coming years. However, as she emphasizes, the current outlook remains cautiously positive.
