News / Global container liftings up, but Far East-Europe trade losing momentum

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New Container Trade Statistics (CTS) data and Sea-Intelligence analysis has revealed the Global Price Index has reached this year’s nadir, and the Far East-Europe trade has begun to lose momentum. 

According to CTS, October global container liftings rose 2.8% month on month, to reach 16.3m teu. October volumes were also up, 2% year on year, helping push year-to-date growth to 4%, compared with the same period in 2024. 

This marks the sixth time this year that monthly volumes have passed 16m teu, in contrast with last year, when the industry crossed that threshold only twice.  

But despite this continued growth, CTS’s Global Price Index dropped another three points, to 73, its lowest level this year and 21 points below January. 

“While volumes remain strong, signs of weakening have appeared in several key trade indices, alongside a continued softening of the Global Price Index,” said CTS. 

And new analysis from Sea-intelligence has highlighted an “abrupt slowdown” in teu-miles growth. 

The maritime intelligence company explained: “As we got into 2025, it became a like-for-like comparison and the growth rate in teu-miles roughly followed teu growth. But in October, we saw growth in teu-miles at a rather anaemic 0.1%.”  

According to the analyst, this slowdown is largely attributed to a sudden drop in momentum on the Asia–Europe trade – after a year of seeing roughly 10% growth each month, imports into Europe from Asia swung into negative territory in October.  

And because this cargo is still being rerouted around Africa due to the Red Sea crisis, the reversal had an “outsized effect” on global teu-miles.  

Sea-Intelligence explained that, based on CTS’ latest data of cargo loaded in October, a reversal to Suez routing would lead to a decline of 16.8% in global demand, measured in teu-miles.  

“This, in practical terms, means that if we do see an opening of the Suez routing as we get into 2026, this is the level of impact we should expect on demand – and hence, also an indication of a severe injection of additional capacity,” the analyst warned.  

But despite this drop in growth from Asia-Europe, the Far East still “remains the clear leader” for exports in October, up nearly 5.2m teu from October 2024 according to CTS’s liftings data – largely from the surge in trade between the Far East and the Indian Sub-Continent & Middle East.  

Meanwhile, Sub-Saharan Africa again took the top spot for regional import growth, “reflecting the region’s remarkable rise throughout 2025”. 

Imports for Sub-Saharan Africa were up 16% year to date, primarily driven by strong cargo flows from the Far East, the Indian Sub-Continent & Middle East and, “surprisingly”, North America. 

These developing markets have played a pivotal role in supporting overall global volumes, offsetting challenges in major tradelanes.” said CTS. 

But despite the increased volumes into Sub-Saharan Africa, the data company revealed that all price indices going into the region had remained stable this year.