Record-high freight prices
Tripling of China-Europe shipping costs may disrupt goods supplies.
By Marc Allen, Maritime Direct UK.
The cost of moving goods from China to Europe has more than tripled in the last two months, reports the Financial Times. The record-high prices are due to a shortage of shipping containers and a typical 40-foot container from Asia to northern Europe has increased from $2,000 in November to over $9,000.
Lars Jensen of SeaIntelligence, said: “It’s a bottleneck problem . . . These rates are being driven by customers fighting over a limited resource — containers.” The first half of the pandemic caused a global slowdown in trade and thousands of containers were left stranded as shipping lines cancelled sailings.
Now, with the rebound in the world economy, competition for containers has sent rates soaring. Terminals have more volume than they can handle and the congestion is adding to the increase in costs as shipping lines bill for compensation because of long waiting times.
