After weeks of steady declines, spot freight rates in the container shipping market remained stable this week. In fact, Drewry’s World Container Index composite fell by a marginal 0.4 % on the previous week, to $1,710 per 40-foot container, and remains 84% below the peak reached in September 2021, when rates had averaged $10,0377 per FEU.
Spot rates, currently below the 36% average of the last ten years and down 79% from the values of the same week the previous year, nevertheless remain 20% higher than the pre-pandemic levels of 2019.
Rotterdam-Shanghai freight rates fell by 3%, to $678 per FEU. Shanghai-Los Angeles and Shanghai-Genoa rates were also down, by 2% each, to US$1736 and US$2245 per FEU respectively.
Rotterdam-New York-Rotterdam freight rates also dropped by 2%, to 1070 dollars per forty-foot container.
On the Rotterdam-New York and Los Angeles-Shanghai routes, a modest drop of 1% was recorded for both, to 4936 and 1058 dollars per FEU respectively.
On the other hand, Shanghai-Rotterdam rates rose by 4% to 1532 dollars per FEU, while those on Shanghai-New York remained stable compared to the previous week’s levels.
Translation by Giles Foster
