Danish container shipping giant Maersk Line revealed its intention to raise the freight rates from Far East Asia to North Europe to USD 1,450 per 20-foot equivalent unit (TEU), the company said on Tuesday.
The changes, which will apply to all kinds of freight, are scheduled to take effect from July 1..jpg)
In its announcement, Maersk Line said that the freight rates would increase “from all Asian countries to all Mediterranean, Adriatic, Black Sea and North Africa countries.”
The rate hike follows the company’s improvements to the network between Asia and North Europe by deploying its large container vessels across five of its Asia – North Europe services in the network.
Maersk Line earlier said it intends to eliminate overlapping port pairs in order to reduce the number of direct port calls in the network and increase reliability through slower network speeds while maintaining competitive transit times through the reduction in port calls.
“We are utilizing our scale to deliver a better product. With the largest network and the deployment of an increasingly uniform fleet of ultra large container vessels, we maintain our extensive direct coverage while focusing each service towards best in class transit times to specific markets on the trade,“ said Vincent Clerc, Chief Commercial Officer in Maersk Line.
Maersk previously increased its freight rates from Asia to Northern Europe by USD 400 per 20 TEU from April 1. The increase was also introduced on the Far East Asia to Mediterranean service worth USD 500 per TEU, excluding Japan and Syria.
The shipping major saw its profit slide to USD 37 million during the first quarter of the year, against the USD 714 million reported in the same period of 2015.
Revenue of USD 5 billion was 20 percent lower than in same period a year earlier, driven by a 26 percent decline in average freight rates to 1,857 USD/FFE from 2,493 USD/FFE in 2015, and only partially offset by a 7 percent increase in volumes to 2,361k FFE.
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Source: http://worldmaritimenews.com/ |