Cross-alliance cooperation on the increase as market weakens
Ocean carriers are pulling capacity from Chinese export routes and redeploying the ships to more robust trade lanes with growth potential. Moreover, the weakness in the Chinese market is prompting more discussions on carrier slot swap agreements between rival alliances.
Poor cargo demand in China and falling ocean spot freight rates have led to significant changes in global fleet deployment’’ said one industry spokesman.
The spokesman noted that more than 565,000 teu of capacity was withdrawn from Asia-North America and Asia-Europe trades last year. Carriers have said that they do not expect the Chinese export market to recover anytime soon, and Japanese carrier ONE said yesterday, in its results outlook, that profitability was “expected to deteriorate”, due to a softening of demand. It said the number of blanked sailings was “expected to increase due to the longer slack season around the Chinese New Year and the time it takes for cargo volumes to recover”.
ONE is now forecasting a significant drop in revenues compared with the $5bn+ profit it achieved in the same period of 2022, reflecting the sharp reversal in demand for cargo from China and consequent slump in freight rates.