The Far Eastern Freight Conference has estimated continued strong growth of 19.3% for its Asia to Europe trade in 2008, but the conference’s westbound rate is expected to increase by $200 per teu.
The FEFC expects westbound trade to North Europe to grow by 18.02% in 2008 and 19% to the west Mediterranean. Meanwhile the strongest growth area is expected for trade to the east Mediterranean and Black Sea, with a growth rate of 25.4%. In the same period, the FEFC expects its capacity to grow by 21.1%.
The conference said that the rate from Asia, excluding Japan, to North Europe/Baltic/Scandinavia and Mediterranean would increase by $200 per teu and $300 per teu from South East Asia. The increases are expected to take effect from January 1, 2008.
At a press conference this week, FEFC chairman Adolf Adrion hit back at criticism received by the conference last year that its estimated 15% growth rate for 2007 was “over optimistic”. He added that its estimate was closer than most others to the actual growth rate of 19.3% in the first nine months of this year.
In the same period, trade to North Europe grew by 18.02% and 21.76% to the Mediterranean.
“It happens quite frequently that cargo trade is underestimated by experts,” said Mr. Adrion.
Korea emerged as the dominant country of origin in the period from January to October this year in terms of percentage growth, compared to the previous period.
Its share jumped just over 31%, both to North Europe and the Mediterranean with 234,039 teu and 207,667 teu respectively. However, China retained the top spot in terms of volume, shipping nearly 2.5m teu to North Europe and 1.8m to the Mediterranean.
FEFC chief executive Rod Riseborough said that cargo growth from Korea was substantially outstripping anywhere else in Asia.
The conference chief believes that its diverse pattern of trade, which is not reliant upon a single economy such as the US, will benefit FEFC lines in 2008.
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