Consider This: Canals Are Becoming Chokepoints

SONGPHOL THESAKIT/Moment via Getty Images By Kim Catechis, Investment Strategist, Franklin Templeton Institute Franklin Templeton The importance of major canals to global trade cannot be underestimated. Franklin Templeton Institute's Kim Catechis highlights some of the challenges they face, including militant attacks and climate change. International trade drives global economic growth, and around 80% of the global movement of goods is via maritime transport. Access to the two most important canals in the world has been fundamental to this growth. Today, they are chokepoints. One is the Suez Canal, which the Suez Canal Company of France completed in 1869. It connects…