Spot container rates skyrocket from Asia to Europe

Since last week, rates from Shanghai to Northwest Europe and the Mediterranean increased by 328 percent and 298 percent, respectively.    Spot container rates as published in the Shanghai Shipping Exchange’s Shanghai Containerized Freight Index, which includes spot rate estimates from Shanghai to 15 regions around the world, rose from a reading of 537.73 last week to a reading of 759.00.
   Since last week, rates from Shanghai to Northwest Europe increased from $231 per TEU to $988 per TEU.
   “Despite the latest increase, rates still remain 25 percent lower than the same period of 2014,” Richard Ward, a container derivatives broker at Freight Investor Services said in a statement. “In fact, weekly rates on the route haven’t been above their corresponding period of 2014 at any point this year, reflecting the fundamentally poor market conditions.”
   From Shanghai to the Mediterranean, rates rose from $202 per TEU to $988 per TEU.
   Rates from Shanghai to the U.S. West Coast jumped from $1,166 per forty-foot container (FEU) to $1,363 per FEU, while rates from Shanghai to the U.S. East Coast increased from $2,163 per FEU to $2,354 per FEU.