Ocean Freight rates from Asia to North Europe have continued to increase over the past week, reaching a level barely seen on the route in recent times and following an approximate jump of 20% the week before.

Some carriers are reportedly still stalling 2017 contract negotiations on the expectations of further hikes in market rates. The ‘effective’ withdrawal of UASC and Hamburg Sud from the market and the recent announcement of the Japanese lines merger of container businesses has impacted the collective shipping lines positions.

On 7 December Asia-Europe carriers had to change the way that they make price announcements to customers, based on commitments given to the European Commission after a five-year long anti-trust investigation into alleged “price signalling”. The carriers undertook to “stop publishing and communicating GRI (general rate increase) announcements” on the tradelane.

Instead carriers are allowed to publish all-inclusive maximum freight rates for the route – however, these must be made more than 30 days before the implementation date. Furthermore, the published FAK (freight all kinds) rates must be the maximum prices for the validity period, inclusive of surcharges.

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