To the usual list of recession beneficiaries – pawnbrokers and priests – add scrap metal merchants. Specifically those specialising in really big-ticket items, such as container ships.

According to Ron Widdows, chief executive of Neptune Orient Lines , south-east Asia’s biggest carrier, now is as tough as it has ever been for the industry, thanks to a confluence of vanishing demand, a freeze in trade credit and chronic over-supply of vessels. Declaring that 2009 will be “grim”, Mr Widdows announced cuts to almost 10 per cent of NOL’s workforce on Wednesday, having axed services on its main trade routes last month. That outlook, a few notches below the usual “challenging”, is an understatement. A year ago, transporting a container of flatscreen TVs from Hong Kong to Rotterdam would cost $1,450. Now it is about $200 and falling – defying the usual pre-Christmas bounce – as a glut of new ships is about to swamp the market. More tonnage is scheduled to enter service in 2009 than the combined deliveries in the then record years of 2004 and 2005, says Clarksons, the shipbroker.