News / Calmer waters for box trades this year as supply:demand ratio evens out

© Vladimir Serebryanskiy |

Despite continuing soft container spot rates after the two-week Chinese New Year trade hiatus, ocean carriers remain bullish on the prospects of the deepsea trades in 2018.

Graham Slack, Maersk Group chief economist, told delegates at last week’s TPM event in Long Beach that, following a strong 2017, he believed supply-demand fundamentals this year would improve.

However, he also claimed that shippers and carriers needed to move away from simply analysing demand and supply when it came to negotiating long-term contracts.

“The whole discussion around ...