International shipping prices have skyrocketed since the second half of 2020. On routes from China to the western US, for example, the cost of shipping a standard 40-foot container peaked at $20,000 – $30,000, up from around $2,000 before the outbreak. Moreover, the impact of the epidemic has led to a sharp decline in container turnover at overseas ports. “Sky-high freight rates” and “hard to find a case” have been the biggest problems for foreign trade workers in the past two years. This year, things have changed. After the Spring Festival, shipping prices are visible all the way down.
The near future, the price of global container shipping is adjusted, freight of partial route appears to decline to a certain extent. According to the FBX index published by the Baltic Maritime Exchange, FBX containerships (mainly shippers’ prices) continued their downward trend on May 26th, averaging $7,851 (down 7% from the previous month) and down nearly a third from their all-time high in September last year.
But on May 20th the Shanghai Shipping Exchange published SCFI, which is mainly quotes from shippers, showing rates on the Shanghai-West America route down just 2.8% from their peak. This is mainly due to the actual carrier and actual shipper price difference caused by big. Have previously high shipping prices fallen across the board? What will change in the future?
According to the analysis of Zhou Dequan, chief economist of Shanghai International Shipping Research Center of Shanghai Maritime University and director of Shipping Development Research Institute, according to the current container shipping market performance, when the demand for centralized release and effective supply shortage appears, the market freight rate will remain high; When both appear at the same time, market freight or will appear to rise substantially.
From the current pace of demand. Although the global capacity to adapt to and control the epidemic is increasing, the epidemic will still be repeated, demand will still show intermittent ups and downs, domestic exports are still relatively strong, but the impact of the pace of demand has entered the second half.
From the perspective of effective supply development. Global logistics supply chain capacity is recovering, ship turnover rate is constantly improving. In the absence of other sudden factors, the container seaborne market should be hard to see a big rise. In addition, the rapid growth of ship orders in the past two years has gradually released the effective shipping capacity of ships, and there are great challenges in the future market high freight rates.
Post time: Jun-06-2022