The spot price of containers continues to rise, with the shortage of ships is due to the majority of capacity being used on the popular trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe trade routes.
According to a report by Foreign Shipping, in recent months many ships have been moved from less popular trade routes to the Asian market. Shipping companies have transferred as much capacity as possible to facilitate the booming Asia-Europe and trans-Pacific trade.
Platts Container Rate 1 showed in mid-May that the container freight rate of the North Asia and North Europe route soared to US$12,000/FEU, an increase of US$1,500/FEU from the previous week and almost tenfold the US$1,300/FEU estimated for this route one year ago.
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The latest increase in freight rates came at a time when demand on major global routes continued to exceed supply. Compared with the beginning of the pandemic, the number of empty containers in circulation in the shipping industry has fallen sharply.
This is mainly because once the containers are unloaded from the ship, due to the shortage of workers at the terminal, poor inland transportation, and the pandemic, the time of returning to the port has greatly increased.
Due to the outbreak of the Covid pandemic in major hubs around the world, port delays have greatly reduced the availability of support staff, resulting in major delays.
