In a recent article, the site seatrade-maritime.com takes a closer look at the current shortage of containers. Where the reasons lie. And whether the shortage will continue through Chinese New Year.

Container shortage - Will Chinese New Year be a turning point?

Container shortage could reach a turning point after CNY

Container shortages that have sent freight rates soaring could reach a turning point over the Chinese New Year as availability begins to improve at key export hubs such as Shanghai, according to Container xChange.

Containers on the wrong side of the world

Container lines’ management of capacity through empty runs to cope with the sharp drop in volumes in the first half of 2020 due to the Covid 19 closures left equipment at ports on the wrong side of the world as volumes fell by as much as 30% in the second half of the year.

Container availability index down 75%

The result was that Container xChange’s container availability index (CAx) in Shanghai fell to 0.13 for 40-foot dry containers and 0.08 for hi-cube containers in December, with any index below 0.5 considered a bottleneck. This represented a drop of 75% and 83%, respectively, compared to availability levels in the first quarter of 2020.

You can read the full article “Container shortage – Chinese New Year set to be a turning point” by Markus Hand on seatrade-maritime.com here:

Source: seatrade-maritime.com

Receive all the latest news once a week

Receive all the latest news once a week

Make it easy for yourself: we will remind you once a week about the latest news.

Join our mailing list to receive the latest news and updates from our team.

You have Successfully Subscribed!