With all the attention on U.S. consumers and inventory levels, Europe’s importance to shipping lines can get lost in the shuffle. The Asia-Europe trade is pivotal to container shipping operators — and this trade is now under severe pressure.
Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos (NASDAQ: CRGO), said in a market report Tuesday that trans-Pacific spot rates remain well above 2019 levels “but carriers are not having the same success in the Asia-Europe lanes.”
The Freightos Baltic Daily Index (FBX) now puts China-North Europe spot rates below $1,000 per forty-foot equivalent unit, the lowest they’ve been since FBX began publishing its indexes.
