Freight rates in maritime container transport have significantly decreased in recent months, determined the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), concluding that the period of pandemic disruptions has ended.
In the last two years, shipping companies specialized in container cargo transport have operated with significantly higher profits, emphasized IfW.
Meanwhile, freight rates have fallen below the average in the pre-pandemic period, especially on routes to ports in the U.S., where they dropped within a year from over $8,000 to around $1,000 per container.
The trend of falling freight rates goes hand in hand with the normalization of maritime cargo transport worldwide, which during the pandemic was marked by significant disruptions due to the blockade of major ports and frequent congestion.
As ships and containers being transported were often not in the right place at the right time, freight rates rose until last year, but the period of pandemic congestion has come to an end, concluded the institute.
– Currently, just over seven percent of goods are delayed in the world, which is not a large number by historical standards, they emphasize at IfW. At the peak of the pandemic, the share of delayed goods was around 14 percent.
IfW analyzes the movement of ships in real-time for hundreds of ports around the world to provide insight into the development and state of global trade.
