A divergence in container spot freight rates between the Asia-Europe and Asia-North America trades emerged this week, with pricing declines into Europe getting sharper, while rates to North America strengthened, week on week.
Market sources believe it was the widespread reduction of capacity through aggressive blanked sailings that prevented transpacific rates from crashing through the floor, and this week’s Drewry’s World Container Index’s (WCI) Shanghai-Los Angeles leg was up 5% week on week, to hit $2,713 per 40ft.
In the first half of 2022, 307,200 TEUs were transported along the China — Europe — China Eurasian railway route, which is 8.7% less than in the same period in 2021.
In the first five months of 2020, the total value of mutual trade between the EU and China carried out by railway transport, increased by 21.22% year-on-year (47.42% more in May than in January 2020) . This development allowed rail transport to increase its share in the total trade volume from 2.83% in January-May 2019 to 3.47% in January-May 2020.
