CMA CGM ocean carrier, recently announced its plans to carry out a major asset sale program in order to gain control of CEVA Logistics. As the company stated, part of the plan is to sell stakes in 10 port assets to its joint venture partner, China Merchants Port Holdings.
India’s export-import trade is expected to slow down in the coming months, as Maersk said in its April-June India trade report. The latter indicated that India’s containerised trade growth slowed to 1%, compared to 9% in the same period last year.
iContainers stated that there are two extra factors in 2019, that could cause “further disrupt” and throw a wrench in the day-to-day management of the shipping peak season. Namely, the ocean freight industry has recently been operating under a cloud of uncertainty due to Brexit and the unpredictable US-China trade war.
According to Intermodal Association of North America (IANA), its activity was weak during the second quarter of 2019. IANA’s estimate concerning the intermodal container activity highlights the deepening of the freight recession that railroads and trucking companies saw in the 2019 second quarter.
Trade war and an economic slowdown are two factors impeding growth in global freight, Danish giant Maersk, the world’s largest container shipping company, warned on Friday. Maersk cut its forecast for global growth in container traffic this year, due to the trade dispute between the US and China.
The global container port throughput index for March 2019 bounced back to a level of 130.2 points, after experiencing more than 17 points decline in February, Drewry said in its latest Container Port Throughput assessment. This decline was mainly due to the effects of the Chinese New Year holiday period.
With retail sales rising and Trump’s plans to both increase and broaden tariffs on goods from China, imports at the US’ major retail container ports are expected to see unusually high levels in the next months and through the summer, according to a monthly report by the NRF and Hackett Associates.
In February 2019, the global container port throughput index declined to 114 points, after reaching 131 points in January, according to Drewry’s latest assessment for April 2019. This was mainly due to the Chinese New Year celebrated in February 2019 which dampened activity levels.
The composite index decreased 0.3% this week, but increased by 12.8% when compared with same period of 2018. The Index, a composite of container freight rates on 8 major routes to/from the US, Europe and Asia is down 0.3% to $1,330.29 per 40ft container, as of 18 April.
The US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) will continue paying attention on the way that ocean carriers pass on additional fuels costs that have occurred due to IMO’s 2020 sulphur cap. The regulation could increase fuel costs by as much as one third. FMC is mainly aiming to make sure that ocean carrier bunker charge adjustment formulas are clear and definite, FMC Chairman Michael Khouri informed.
