In eleven days time, the new US charges on Chinese linked vessels visiting US ports begins being applied. China has decided to counter these charges, allowing it to ban or impose charges on US linked tonnage visiting their ports.

Liner companies running services from the Far East to the USEC and USWC will be affected by these costs by varying degrees, Cosco will be greatly affected as their fleet is mainly Chinese built and naturally Chinese owned, whereas Evergreen and HMM have a majority of Korean built fleets so will be mostly unaffected by the new costs. So will be interesting to see what happens to rates in the coming months.

Over the past week we have seen rates declining on the 4 main FBX routes from the Far East. FBX01 (China/East Asia – USA West Coast) dropped $276 week on week and is $607 down compared with the start of September. FBX03 (China/East Asia – USA East Coast) has decreased by $683 compared with end last week. FBX11 (China/East Asia – North Europe) has declined by $348 from last Friday and $803 since the start of September. FBX13 (China/East Asia – Mediterranean) ended the week $175 lower than last Friday, but down $847 since the start of the September.