Shipping congestion sends prices rocketing
Supply chain chaos has led to an increase of more than 650% in the price of shipping a container from Shanghai to Rotterdam.
According to a report from CNN, with London-based Drewry Shipping’s World Container Index as the source of the information, the cost of shipping a 40-foot container from Shanghai to Rotterdam had reached $13,698 by mid-August this year. Compared to the same time last year, this represents a hike of 659%.
Chief executive of shipping Maersk, Søren Skou, told the news outlet that these are “historical high freight rates” and are the result of there being “simply not enough capacity”.
One case of covid-19 was enough to bring about a shutdown at one of the terminals at the port of Ningbo on August 11, exacerbating and already problematic global shipping environment.
That terminal reopened on August 23, but another senior figure in global logistics, Hapag-Lloyd chief executive, Rolf Habben Jansen, told CNN that he expects it will be the first quarter of 2022 before the current market situation eases.
