Easing of Asia-European Ocean Freight Markets

Uneek Forwarding and other freight operators are reporting some easing of the ocean freight markets in Asia in the last few weeks, including reductions in pricing from China, better availability of containers and some easing of congestion in destination ports. However, this may be ‘the eye of the storm’, with more disruptions to come as recently blocked services come back online.

At Uneek-Group we are starting to see progressive improvements. We have definitely seen a reduction in general freight rates from direct shipping. This had been the case since the end of February following the Chinese New Year, and since then there has been a beginning of a return towards a more normal pricing environment.

Meanwhile, levels of congestion and availability of containers have also improved, although it remains challenging and congestion is still rife everywhere so it’s still not great. It’s still bad at all the primary UK container ports, we know that. But we think it might have plateaued and on the availability of containers, there is a lot of new containers being built to injected some fresh equipment capacity into the market, and that will help to ease everything.

At Uneek Forwarding, we have seen evidence that UK container terminals have become less problematic in recent weeks, although it’s possible that this may be temporary. There have been blank voyages and also a drop in volume due to capacity constraints from the Far East, we are aware of substantial volumes already shipped or waiting to ship and expect volumes to peak again.

We have also seen the usual slowdown in demand from Asia after the Chinese New Year and by the announced blank sailings, their pipeline of cargo and short-term volume projections remain very strong, which leaves pricing power very much with us.

So if you have products stuck in China before their New Year, now is a great time to talk to us and get them shipped ASAP.

For more information about Uneek Forwarding and the services we can offer you, please contact us via this website or give us a call.

[email protected] / +44 (0) 20 8984 0425