By Vincent Wen    Photo：by günter from Pixabay

Affected by the Chinese New Year holiday, the anticipated decline in prices from late February to March is within expectations. The work resumption rates after mid-March will be a crucial observation point. If prices cannot be maintained, the industry will face even greater challenges this year.

Especially considering the record-breaking that new ship had been made, with up to 60%, approximately 2 million TEUs concentrated in the first half of the year, an oversupply of capacity will become the biggest challenge for shipping companies. Apart from relying on reducing and merging services to support prices, close attention is also needed on the recovery of European and American import demand.

In response to the issues in the Red Sea, shipping schedules have adopted a reduced service supply strategy, providing strong support for prices even during the off-season. Currently, the prices quoted to customers in March have decreased by an average of about $1000 per FEU compared to February. Specifically, the price from the Far East to the West Coast has dropped to $4000 per FEU, while the price from the Far East to the East Coast has decreased to $5500 per FEU.

The world's second-largest shipping company, Maersk, expects the disruption on the Red Sea route to continue until the second half of this year. This implies that the transportation supply chain times will become longer in the future, potentially causing serious congestion and delays for goods bound for Europe and the East Coast of the United States. In response, Maersk has once again urged global business owners to prepare for increased costs.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) anticipates that U.S. import volumes in the first half of this year will increase by 5.3% compared to the same period last year.

According to the latest quotes from SCFI:

China Shanghai to the U.S. West Coast price is $4262 per FEU, down $429 from last week, a decline of 9.15%.
China Shanghai to the U.S. East Coast price is $5747 per FEU, down $380 from last week, a decline of 6.2%.
 

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