Danish giant Maersk Line joined the New York Shipping Exchange (NYSHEX), the innovator of the first digital forward freight contract for global container shipping, as a founding member. In less than nine months, NYSHEX has added six of the top global ocean carriers as members, representing a combined 52% of the global capacity.
Founded in 2015, NYSHEX is enabling the transformation of the container shipping industry through two innovations: a new standard form freight contract and new way to trade ocean freight digitally. The mission of NYSHEX is to help shippers, NVOCCs and carriers overcome the historic inefficiencies in ocean freight contracting and in doing so, reveal the $23 billion economic opportunity that exists for the shipping industry each year.
Maersk Line joins Hapag Lloyd, CMA CGM, MOL, OOCL, and COSCO as carrier members of the exchange. In addition, the member carriers on NYSHEX now represent all three major alliances: 2M, Ocean Alliance, and THE Alliance.
“Maersk Line has been a pioneer of many digital initiatives, and we are delighted to be working together in digitizing the freight contracting process, as well as improving shipment reliability. With each additional carrier that joins the exchange, our members benefit from more offerings and services to choose from,” said Gordon Downes, CEO of NYSHEX.
Speaking to the importance of addressing the issues of over-bookings and rollings in the shipping industry, Omar Shamsie, President of Maersk Line North America added:
“The time is now to create a more collaborative environment for all participants in the ocean transportation industry. That is why we’re excited to begin piloting NYSHEX’s processes and technology in North America starting March 2018 to increase visibility and certainty for shippers which we hope will result in a better end-to-end experience for our customers.”
With the NYSHEX platform, Maersk will offer a product for customers who want to agree and control their costs upfront and receive a commitment from the carrier for the transport of their shipment. Maersk Line will begin piloting in its transpacific export agriculture market (exports from the U.S. to Asia), as of March 2018.
