Containerization and low fuel costs have made transporting goods by sea relatively inexpensive, costing around €1500-€2500 to ship a container from Singapore to Rotterdam. Advances in air travel such as low-cost airlines have significantly reduced travel times and costs, enabling a more connected global economy. New communication technologies like the internet and mobile phones have also helped shrink the world by allowing more efficient coordination and sharing of information across great distances.

1. Factors enabling a shrinking world

13. Containerisation and relatively low fuel costs have meant that the transport costs for each unit transported is very low. It costs around 1500 to 2500 Euros to transport a TEU container from Singapore to Rotterdam.

14. Container Traffic (in thousands TEU Twenty foot equivalent containers) 5,780 6,710 7,289 7,316 United States of America Long Beach 15 6,064 6,482 7,019 8,176 Belgium Antwerp 14 7,321 7,485 8,470 8,355 United States of America Los Angeles 13 3,308 4,685 6,600 9,200 People's Republic of China Guangzhou 12 4,006 5,208 7,068 9,349 People's Republic of China Ningbo 11 5,140 6,307 7,702 9,462 People's Republic of China Qingdao 10 7,003 8,088 8,862 9,890 Germany Hamburg 9 9,714 9,471 9,775 10,257 Taiwan Kaohsiung 8 6,429 7,619 8,923 10,653 United Arab Emirates Dubai 7 8,281 9,287 9,655 10,791 Netherlands Rotterdam 6 11,430 11,843 12,039 13,270 South Korea Busan 5 13,615 16,197 18,469 21,099 People's Republic of China Shenzhen 4 21,984 22,427 23,539 23,881 People's Republic of China Hong Kong 3 14,557 18,084 21,710 26,150 People's Republic of China Shanghai 2 21,329 23,192 24,792 27,932 Singapore Singapore 1 2004 2005 2006 2007 Country Port Rank

15. How far is it from your home to school?

16. We tend to think of distance in terms of travel times . Travel times are being reduced because of the increase in air travel . Also air travel is becoming more affordable. For example in the year 2000 Bratislava to London. £75 by bus 22 hours. 2008 Bratislava to London. £40 by low cost airline 2.5 hours.

17. Aviation transports more than 2.2 billion passengers annually Aviation carries over 44 million tonnes of freight annually and 35% of interregional exports of goods by value IATA (International Air Transport Association) 2008

18. Enabling Technologies; Information and communication technology. Internet Mobile phones

19. Products from home country. British, Korean, US section in Tesco Polish shops and Kurnky in UK