Kyunghee Park

Hyundai Motor Group will spend $1.6 billion to develop autonomous vehicles with Aptiv Plc, marking one of the biggest investments yet by a traditional carmaker into the burgeoning robocar industry.

The world’s biggest shipbuilder sees China’s cleanup of its smoggy skies lifting prices of the vessels this year.

Globalization has brought the most advanced trading networks the world has seen, with the biggest, fastest vessels, robot-operated ports and vast computer databases tracking cargoes. But it all still relies on millions and millions of paper documents.

A massive consolidation is underway in the $500 billion global industry and the survivors now enjoy big economies of scale and increased demand, one year after excess capacity caused the sector’s worst-ever crisis - the bankruptcy of South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Co.