Drewry expects east-west rates to rise 18pc next year

ALL-IN freight rates on east west trade will rise 18 per cent next year while trade volumes will increase 2.3 per cent according to the annual container market review and forecast by London's Drewry Shipping Consultants, reports Logistics Week.

"The container market has bottomed out and we expect global traffic to recover a little in the second half of 2009. We should see some minor recovery in trade flows for 2010. Freight rates have been improving on a number of routes recently, but these trends have been counter-cyclical," said the report's editor Neil Dekker.

According to the UK's International Freighting Weekly, Mr Dekker said shipping lines, owners, shippers, terminal operators, shipyards and banks will have to cooperate to resolve the excess capacity problem. The problems are "inextricably linked through complex relationships relating to credit and contractual lines for the financing and delivery of a huge backlog of ships", he said.

(Source: www.schednet.com)