BAROMETER. In a context of sluggish demand, freight rates in container shipping are falling or at best stabilising depending on the market. The most profitable segments are affected.
Highlights of the month
- Red Sea attacks resume
After a period of calm, Houthis attacks on commercial ships resumed violently in July, with two ships sunk and at least four crew members killed. This resurgence of attacks has put at risk the prospect of a return of container traffic via the Suez Canal in the second half of the year. War risk surcharges to cross the Strait of Bab-el Mandeb are soaring again.
This situation, however, did not prevent ships belonging to the car manufacturer BYD from using this route without incident. On July 15, the BYD X'IAN ro-ro ship passed through the Suez Canal on its maiden voyage between Singapore and Italy, and a few days earlier, on June 27, the BYD HEFEI did the same. "We expect the tonnage of vehicle carriers transiting through the Canal to increase by at least 20% in the second half of 2025 compared to the first half of the same year" said Admiral Osama Rabiee, Chairman and CEO of the Suez Canal Authority. A move that has led observers to question the guarantees obtained by the Chinese company to transport such high-value goods, at the same time as the attacks were resuming.
- Sluggish demand
On July 27, 2025, the United States and the European Union concluded a trade agreement. The US will apply a 15% tariff to the vast majority of EU exports. The agreement still contains many grey areas, but exporters and importers still hope to finally have a more stable framework for managing their trade relations.
While the tariffs saga may have supported demand in the first half of the year, through an effect of forward purchasing, it is clear that structurally, East/West container volumes risk weakening on the transpacific route and stagnating with Europe. The growth of containerised trade is now clearly oriented towards intra-Asia and Indo-Pacific. This stagnation in volumes should not be considered as the market stalling but as a high plateau that the market seems to have reached with regard to transoceanic containerised trade.
- Prices
On the Asia-Europe route, maintaining the passage of ships by the Cape of Good Hope route is no longer enough to fuel tension on the market. Attempts to restore freight rates are stalling (...)
Already a subscriber?