Clarkson cuts container shipping forecasts
Clarkson Plc., the world's biggest shipbroker, cut forecasts for growth this year in shipping of containers, predicting the weakest increase on the Asia-to-US trade route, Bloomberg reports. Shipments of 20-foot boxes carrying goods from furniture to televisions to US West Coast ports from Asia will gain 1.5 per cent, below the prior 6.1 per cent estimate, according to London-based Clarkson's Container Intelligence Quarterly. Global container traffic will increase 8.3 per cent, against the 9 per cent predicted previously, it showed.
Rising imports to emerging economies such as Latin America are offsetting slower growth in shipments to Europe and the US, Clarkson said. Containerised trade contracted 9 per cent in 2009, the first slump in its 50-year history, as volumes shipped to the US and Europe from Asia fell as much as 15 per cent, data show. World volumes rebounded 13 per cent last year as Asia-to-US imports in boxes to West Coast ports rose 15 per cent.
'Although poor consumer sentiment stemming from a stalled economic recovery has affected both North America and Europe this year, European imports have, to some extent, been shielded from the decline due to robust economic growth in Eastern Europe,' Clarkson said.
Growth this year in Asia-to-Europe container shipments, the world's second-busiest route, will be 5.3 per cent, Clarkson said. It previously projected a 6.4 per cent gain.
Container traffic on the world's six largest lanes accounts for 30 per cent of total world trade, estimated this year by Clarkson at 151.5 million twenty-foot-equivalent units, or TEU, a standard industry gauge of capacity. Those routes cross the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and link the Far East with Europe.
Global growth in container shipping is set to remain little changed next year at 8.4 per cent, according to Clarkson.
The container-ship fleet will expand 7.6 per cent this year and 8.2 per cent in 2012, the shipbroker said, even after carriers withdrew vessels and cut services last quarter on routes to the US and Europe from Asia to shrink capacity.
New, larger ships delivered for service on main trading lanes are displacing smaller vessels onto other voyages, an industry practice known as 'cascading', Clarkson said.
That extra capacity is putting more pressure on hire costs for the ships as well as the freight rates they charge, it said.
About 27 per cent of new ships scheduled for delivery in this year's first nine months failed to enter service, helping to curb fleet growth and narrowing the balance between supply and demand, according to Clarkson.
Rising imports to emerging economies such as Latin America are offsetting slower growth in shipments to Europe and the US, Clarkson said. Containerised trade contracted 9 per cent in 2009, the first slump in its 50-year history, as volumes shipped to the US and Europe from Asia fell as much as 15 per cent, data show. World volumes rebounded 13 per cent last year as Asia-to-US imports in boxes to West Coast ports rose 15 per cent.
'Although poor consumer sentiment stemming from a stalled economic recovery has affected both North America and Europe this year, European imports have, to some extent, been shielded from the decline due to robust economic growth in Eastern Europe,' Clarkson said.
Growth this year in Asia-to-Europe container shipments, the world's second-busiest route, will be 5.3 per cent, Clarkson said. It previously projected a 6.4 per cent gain.
Container traffic on the world's six largest lanes accounts for 30 per cent of total world trade, estimated this year by Clarkson at 151.5 million twenty-foot-equivalent units, or TEU, a standard industry gauge of capacity. Those routes cross the Pacific and Atlantic oceans and link the Far East with Europe.
Global growth in container shipping is set to remain little changed next year at 8.4 per cent, according to Clarkson.
The container-ship fleet will expand 7.6 per cent this year and 8.2 per cent in 2012, the shipbroker said, even after carriers withdrew vessels and cut services last quarter on routes to the US and Europe from Asia to shrink capacity.
New, larger ships delivered for service on main trading lanes are displacing smaller vessels onto other voyages, an industry practice known as 'cascading', Clarkson said.
That extra capacity is putting more pressure on hire costs for the ships as well as the freight rates they charge, it said.
About 27 per cent of new ships scheduled for delivery in this year's first nine months failed to enter service, helping to curb fleet growth and narrowing the balance between supply and demand, according to Clarkson.
