From Weekly Market Pulse published no 22 Oct: Asia-Europe carriers are pushing ahead with the 1 Nov rate hike, with higher spot rates offers already spreading through the market. Volumes are recovering after the Chinese holidays helped by pre-GRI bookings to avoid the higher tariffs in November. Average utilization for vessels in the Far East-North Europe service that departed last week reached 97%, the highest level since 2Q 2024 with capacity still constrained due to post-Golden Week blank sa
Fears over a container market correction sparked by the possible end to hostilities in the Middle East proved to be premature as Chinese freight futures regaining all of last Tuesday’s losses, with further gains still to come after the SCFIS recorded a 3rd straight week of double digit % gains. The introduction of 3 new North Europe strings by Hapag-Lloyd (CGX) in June, followed by MSC (Britannia) and CMA CGM (French Peak) in July has not dampened the rate momentum with the SCFI rising by 5.7%