The intra-Asia tradelanes are coming under the most pressure at the moment with rates on several key corridors already slipping to pre-2020 levels as capacity that were previously redeployed to the Transpacific are now returning to Asia. Total containership capacity employed on the Intra-Far East routes is rising again after a 2 year decline, as ships that were redeployed to the more lucrative long-haul trades now returning in large numbers. Intra-FE capacity peaked in early 2020 at 3m teu bu
The Golden Week holidays in China provided little respite for the sliding freight and charter rates. There was no SCFI publication last week due to the Chinese holidays but SCFIS (SCFI on Settled Rates), another index also from Shanghai Shipping Exchange, was published yesterday (10 Oct) where the SCFIS for Shanghai-USWC has fallen to level last seen in May 2020: 1,384, down 11% from the last print on 26 Sep. The SCFIS for Shanghai-Northern Europe was 3,434, fell 13% since 26 Sep but still a mul