Chris Williamson is an economist who is a founder and the driving force behind the S&P Global Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), one of the most closely followed economic indicators globally. The monthly forward-looking data covering 45 major economies is derived from surveys of senior executives in the private sector regarding actual business activity — not sentiment. Central banks, finance ministers, and private sector leaders across the globe rely on the PMI as consistently providing accurate advanced signals of business conditions defined in terms of new orders, backlogs of work, suppliers’ delivery times, stocks of finished goods, and many other metrics. PMI surveys now encompass all major economies and are commonly cited as some of the most important sources of economic information available to financial markets and business decision-makers. In his TPM24 Economic Outlook presentation, Chris will draw from PMI and other data, including S&P Global’s forecasts, to offer an outlook for containerized trade within the context of macroeconomic developments in 2024 and the years ahead.