Chinese New Year slows FEFC's February westbound volume

The Far Eastern Freight Conference said today that its members?container volume in the westbound Asia to Europe and Mediterranean trade declined 6.1 percent in February to 655,211 TEUs, compared to 697,910 TEUs in the same month last year.

The monthly Far East-to-North Europe volume was down 7.3 percent year-on-year to 418,527 TEUs, while the westbound trade to Med ports dropped 4 percent to 236,684 TEUs.

Rod Riseborough, an FEFC spokesman, explained that the reduced monthly volume was due to the Chinese New Year falling on an earlier date this year compared to 2007. He added that while there has been a slower than expected recovery from the Lunar New Year as a result of winter storms and late reopening of factories in China, the conference lines are now seeing strong utilization levels above 90 percent.

After two months of 2008, the FEFC members westbound volume is up 7.4 percent to 1.54 million TEUs. Eastbound figures for February are not available yet, but the FEFC did report January's backhaul volume as being down 5.7 percent at 243,522 TEUs.

The 17 carriers of the FEFC are estimated to control up to three quarters of the available Asia/Europe and Med vessel capacity. They are: ANL Container Lines, APL, CMA CGM, CSAV Norasia, Egyptian International Shipping Co., Hapag-Lloyd, Hyundai Merchant Marine, Line, Maersk Line, Mediterranean Shipping Co., MISC Berhad, MOL, NYK, OOCL, Safmarine, Yang Ming and Zim Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. 

Source: American Shipper