A high demand for space on container ships on the Asia-South American west coast-Mexico trade route is causing an incessant rise in maritime freight prices , despite increasing the capacity of shipping lines week after week, according to the EAX index, from Eternity Group Mexico .
The freight forwarder firm indicated in its monthly report that during May of this year the freight price rose to five thousand 140 dollars per 40-foot container (FEU) on average , an increase of 55.57% compared to the immediately previous month. .
“The severe shortage of containers, especially 40-foot containers, has been one of the main arguments for shipowners to successfully deploy GRI (general rate increase) of approximately $500 per container, week by week,” according to the company of Chinese origin.
In the first four months of this year, Mexican Pacific ports had operated a total of 845,370 20-foot containers (TEU) in import services , mainly from Asia, 18.4% more than in the same period of a year. year before, according to data from the General Coordination of Ports and Merchant Marine (CGPMM) , of the Ministry of the Navy .
Eternity Group México indicated that, given the increase in freight rates, from the importing point of view, the challenges are accentuated between greater complexity to obtain confirmation of space (even paying market rate); longer transit times resulting from high congestion in Asian ports ; volatile exchange rate due to election day, which causes an increase in the payment of tariffs and increases of 70% in logistics costs during the last year (May 2024 vs. May 2023).
Likewise, he recalled that as a consequence of the strong demand in the trade lane , during May different shipowners deployed three new services to capitalize on the high levels of import volume: CMA CGM (M2X) with eight vessels with a capacity of 4,200-5,000 TEU approximately, an exclusive service for Mexico; MSC (Santana) with 13 ships with a capacity of approximately 13,000-15,000 TEU; and COSCO Shipping (WSA5 – irregular service) with eight vessels with a capacity of approximately 4,000-6,000 TEU.
“During the month of June we maintain our bullish outlook considering rates that will be above $7,500 per container, despite the fact that the trade-lane will be receiving greater space capacity (approximately +50 thousand TEU),” according to with the report.
In addition, he recommended carrying out advance planning in import operations , to reduce the impact in terms of logistics costs and, in case of having critical operations, he suggested not speculating on logistics costs when the market is on the rise.
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