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Issue 46, July 9, 2009
During last few months all ocean carriers have experienced a significant decline in container traffic from Asia to North America. Over this time many of their ships have been laid up and are now sitting idle in harbours around the world. This extra capacity has been purposely removed from the trade in an attempt to reduce costs in a down market as well as balance supply and demand ratio. Even with these drastic moves rates continued to fall at a dramatic pace.
Ocean carriers continue to make moves that will enable them to put a stop to rate erosion. As of July 1st Evergreen’s China-Pacific Northwest (CPN) service is temporarily suspended. CPN service has been running 3500 TEU vessels which called Vancouver and Tacoma on weekly basis.
Many of the carriers have been put in a tough financial situation and some of them have now announced rate increases. Amounts announced for all Import (Eastbound) cargo are:
USD 300 per 20ft
USD 400 per 40ft
USD 500 per high cube
Above increase is to take effect on August 1st, 2009. We are currently negotiating with all of our carriers to mitigate this increase.
On the Export (Westbound) side vessels sailing West Coast have been fairly full for last few weeks. Majority of the ships’ capacity has been filled by Lumber and Agricultural products (seeds, beans, etc.). There have been increases already announced and we are also working with our carriers to minimize the impact of them.
In the meantime please contact your sales representative or the local ocean office if you have any questions.
Best Regards,
Tom Cichon
Ocean Freight Director, Canada
