This year's chapter 2 also present a special focus on 10 years of UNCTAD's Line Shipping Connectivity Index and the relate analysis of container ship deployment. The last 10 years have seen two important trends,which represent two sides of the same coin. On the one hand,ships have become bigger,and on the other hand the number of companies in most markets has diminish. As regatds the number of companies, the average per country has decrease by 27 per cent during the last 10 years, from 22in 2004 to just 16 in 2013. This trend has important implications for the level of competition, especially for smaller trending nation. While an average of 16 service providers may still be sufficient to ensure a functioning competitive market with many choices for shipper for the average country,on given individual route, especially those serving smaller devoloping countries, the decline in compettion has led to oligopolistic markets.