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By Sam Whelan
Intra-Asia freight rates from China are soaring as forwarders discover “it’s not just Maersk” giving them the cold shoulder.
One forwarder in Shanghai told The Loadstar that 90% of container vessels departing China’s ports were delayed – bottlenecks in destination markets the main culprit.
He added: “After a period of soft rates for almost two months, sea freight prices have gone upwards again.
“The overall volume ex-China is less, but the overseas disruption to logistics chains and port handling efficiency is the major ...
Comment on this article
Elton Tan
December 18, 2021 at 2:39 amIntra-Asia rate is definitely going upwards. It’s been difficult to get rates as well as space. Even ONE Malaysia had their HK allocations from Port Klang being halved. Liners are definitely trying to blindside the forwarders now and with our customers data in their hands, this will lead to them going behind our backs to offer their rates to direct shippers. The greed is getting overboard with these liners. However, the only silver lining from all this, liners even with their subsidiaries offering forwarders services, they are bound to depend too much on “one solution for all” system and SOP which makes them overly rigid to the smaller exporters which is still substantially a big market and that requires flexibilities that Small Medium Size forwarders can provide.
The only threat to the forwarders earnings now is the availability of Freight and Equipment which is now being used by the liners to lord over the importers and exporters including the freight Forwarders.