Spot rates may soon peak after months of increasingly expensive prices, according to Sea-intelligence in a new analysis.
One of the major reasons why freight rates should soon flatten out is that shipping companies are settling on new schedules for Africa.
This has already started to show in freight rates, which on the SCFI index have fallen by 2.7% since last week. At the same time, rates for Asia and Northern Europe have been declining for almost two weeks.
”Barring other major disasters, we are likely to see spot rates fall further after the Chinese New Year,” the report states.
At the same time, shipping companies’ new sailing plans around Africa will also start to have a positive impact on reliability.
Interest rate rises at pandemic levels
This is a welcome prospect for the world’s shipping and logistics companies, which had feared that freight rates would continue to rise and remain high, as was the case during the pandemic.
However, the speed of interest rate rises on the stretch between Asia and the North Eurozone is almost as high as during the first wave of disruptions during the pandemic, and increases are happening faster than during the crises that occurred in the wake of Ever Given blocking the Suez Canal.
However, actual spot rate levels are far below their pandemic peak.
(Translated using DeepL with additional editing by Catherine Brett)
