China’s October Golden Week, Christmas and Chinese New Year will bolster strong demand for container shipping for the last quarter of 2021. But port congestion, especially in the US and Europe, and service delays are expected to create headwinds for service schedules, Maersk said in a market update Monday.
Maersk says extra loaders (additional ships) and ad hoc port omissions will be implemented to help improve schedule reliability. Meanwhile, inventory levels in Europe and the US remain at their lowest levels on record, leading to stock outs on some products. This means even once retail demand declines, we will see cargo volumes continue to remain strong as inventory levels need to be rebuilt, Maersk said.
Global container demand growth is projected at 6%-8% in 2021, reflecting strong first-half as well as ongoing demand strength in the United States and partly in Europe. While container demand growth has ran ahead of supply growth since the second half 2020, the true drivers of high freight rates are congestions in ports and supply-chain bottlenecks, Maersk says.
This is an excerpt of an article from gCaptain.