Christmas and Coronavirus impact of shipping costs that are now set to quadruple.
A year ago, a 40 foot container used to cost around $2000 / €1660 to ship between China and most European ports but today the cost is anywhere between $8000 / €6640 and $10000 / €8300.
Global shipping is facing the perfect storm of Christmas, Congestion and Covid and a shortage of containers and shipping space. The result of an uneven distribution of containers to meet surging shipping demand from Asia to Europe and the U.S.
The shortage of containers and ships is a result of the coronavirus earlier in the year with many ships loaded with containers, but in ports with nowhere to go. Demand rises and shipping lines are faced with getting ships, full of empty containers back to Asia to then pick up full loads to deliver across the globe. But empty ships cost money, and full ships command a premium.
Congestion at ports has built up in recent months as a result of ships wanting to unload quickly, but the port has high quantities of empty containers built up over the year that has led to congestion and delays. As a result, surcharges and higher shipping costs imposed by some of the world’s largest shipping lines are feeding through into higher costs.
China will increase the supply of containers and tighten monitoring of the shipping market to further stabilize the rising logistics costs in international trade, a government official said on Thursday.
Gao Feng, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce, said during a news conference that the Commerce Ministry will continue to work with related parties to provide more containers to the market, speed up the turnaround of containers, and help container manufacturers to expand productivity, the official said.
For the office imaging sector early indication is that prices will rise in Q1 next year with hardware and consumables increasing between 3% and 12%. Low value parts could see prices double if the value f the load is less than the freight cost.
