Shipping lines may raise charges on container freight
June 30, 2011 Category Logistics, Ports & sea transport
Exporters and importers could face paying higher container freight rates on key trade lanes in the next few months as shippers such as Orient Overseas Container Line attempt to rebuild earnings following a weak first quarter. But these same manufacturers could also suffer a shortage of containers if trade rebounded in the second half of this year, Soren Karas, Maersk Vice President and Hong Kong-based head of South China, said. This was largely because, unlike last year, few carriers parked spare ships as demand dropped after Christmas and during the Lunar New Year holiday. Instead, container lines dropped freight rates to fill their ships with cargo, which put pressure on revenues and profit. He said that while container volumes on transpacific trades grew 4.4% and those on Asia-Europe routes 5.5%, there was 16% to 18% growth in capacity in the first quarter compared with a year earlier. Karas said about 10% of this increased capacity was because shipping lines did not idle their vessels. This oversupply of vessels was what had challenged container lines in the first quarter of this year, he told around 300 delegates to the Journal of Commerce shipping conference in Shanghai. Zhang Ye, President of the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, said container rates on Asia-Europe routes halved from USD1,500 per TEU to USD800 per TEU in eight months. He said ports in the east such as Shanghai and Ningbo saw a 15.7% rise in container volumes to 11.05 million TEU, while northern ports posted an 18.2% surge to 7.7 million TEU from January to March. Ports in the south only saw a 2.4% rise in volumes to 13.47 million TEU. Karas forecast that demand and capacity growth would be more balanced in the second half of this year, but he warned that with throughput volumes forecast to grow by 8% this year there could be a shortage of containers to move goods. He said the global container fleet totaled around 31.3 million TEU, but with the forecast growth this year a further 1.8 million TEU was needed, the South China Morning Post reports.
- KURT VANDEPUTTE (UMICORE) APPOINTED CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF THE FLANDERS-CHINA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (FCCC)
- Webinar: “Knowing Your Chinese Partner” – May 26, 2021, 10 am – 12 am
- EMA starts rolling review of CoronaVac, WHO approves Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use
- The Global Times warns not to politicize the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI)
- Hainan to become biggest duty-free market in the world