A number of shipping companies announced March 1 freight increase!
Date：2025-02-14 09:00:00 View：
Recently, Hapag-Lloyd, HMM and CMA CGM have announced specific details of freight adjustment plans and surcharges for specific routes, which are summarized as follows:
Hapag-lloyd, for its part, has announced an increase in FAK rates for the Far East to Europe, covering a wide range of 20ft and 40ft dry containers, reefer containers and a wide range of high box cargoes. This adjustment is scheduled to take effect on March 1, 2025.
In addition, Hapag-Lloyd also revealed that the company will implement a comprehensive rate increase surcharge (GRI) for shipments of 20 and 40 foot dry containers, reefer containers, and special containers (including tall containers) from Asia and Oceania to the African region.
The surcharge is $300 per standard unit (TEU) effective March 1, 2025 and will remain in place until further notice.
HMM announced that GRI from around the world to the United States, Canada and Mexico will be adjusted, the adjustment date is also set for March 1, 2025.
For CMA CGM, the BAF for the Tunisian Roro service has been updated, also on March 1, 2025.
According to the latest Shanghai Container Freight Index (SCFI) data, as of the week of February 23, the freight rate of Asia to Northern Europe fell by 16% compared with the week before the Spring Festival (January 29), has fallen to $1,805 per TEU.
Although shipping companies have taken a number of market control measures, but the sharp reduction in the amount of cargo after the holiday, resulting in the utilization rate of freight capacity continues to hover below 95%, the entire industry is facing unprecedented severe challenges.
In a new analysis, Linerlytica shipping consultants pointed out that the current decline in cargo shipments in the Far East has far exceeded the capacity of shipping companies to control the blank sailing schedule.
It is worth noting that although Hapag-Lloyd has announced the implementation of freight rate increases since March 1, specifically $2,500 /TEU and $4,100 /FEU, the market is generally expected to face greater difficulty in this price adjustment, given that the loading rate is less than 95% and the post-holiday suspension arrangement is coming to an end.
After the Spring Festival, the cargo volume in North Asia fell back, and this unexpected situation effectively eased the pressure on regional ports. The data show that the anchoring capacity of major ports in China and South Korea has been reduced by 50% from the peak in January, and the previous backlog of 1.2 million TEU vessels has been effectively released.
In the past two weeks, 30% to 60% of the conventional capacity of the originating routes in China has been empty, and the intensity of ship operation has been significantly reduced, which provides valuable buffer space for ports to absorb the accumulated cargo.
Compared with the decline of the Northern Europe route, the Asia to the Mediterranean route fare performance is relatively stable, only slightly down 5% compared with the pre-holiday, maintaining the level of $3,036 per TEU. This is mainly due to the fact that some small shipping companies have transferred the capacity of the Mediterranean route to the Red Sea route to cope with the sudden increase in transport demand in the region.
In particular, Linerlytica cautioned that while major carriers planned to implement a consolidated rate increase (GRI) ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 per 40-foot box on March 1, following the failure to raise rates in mid-February, as shipping alliances significantly resumed capacity after the end of the February blank voyages, The upward road of freight rates will still face similar market resistance as in the previous period.