Shanghai Shipping Exchange announced today (5) the latest SCFI composite index (Shanghai Export Container Freight Index), showing a decline for 8 consecutive weeks, and the point of decline is still expanding. New lows since mid-June, the three long-distance routes have fallen simultaneously, and the declines of the European routes and the American West routes have expanded, and there is no sign of stopping the decline.
Among the three major routes, the latest price drop for the US East Line is relatively small, reaching US$9,330 per FEU (standard 40-foot container), a further drop of US$18, the lowest since the beginning of July last year, while the US West Line fell by US$195 to 6499 per week. The dollar continued to hit a new low since early November last year.
The freight rate per TEU (standard 20-foot container) for the European line came to US$5,166, a further drop of US$250, and the decline expanded to 4.62%, hitting the lowest point since early May last year.
Freight forwarders pointed out that due to the strike of truck drivers in the west, some retailers turned their goods to the east of the United States, which increased the volume of goods in the east of the United States, so the decline in freight rates was relatively small.
On the other hand, since American retailers are even in the stage of lowering prices to clear their inventories, despite the pressure of supply chain bottlenecks in the United States and the West, the demand side cannot be boosted in the peak season for a long time, resulting in the freight rate in the United States and West is still in a downward trend.
Cargo operators also mentioned that in the recent August-September flights on major global routes, including trans-Pacific, trans-Atlantic and Asia-Nordic and Mediterranean, regarding 100 sailings have been cancelled, which is equivalent to a cancellation rate of 13%. About 68% of the blank flights appear on the route from the Far East to North America. Airline companies will use this to ease the decline in freight rates. As for whether the freight rate can stabilize, it remains to be seen how the European and American markets will respond to Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day in the fourth quarter. Waiting for the pull of the holiday demand.
