Drewry tests new year quotes as tariff impositions and GRIs spell the way forward

The Drewry World Container Index (WCI) registered a 6% weekly fall (over 15% for the fortnight) recording US$2,629, its lowest since the 60% jump recorded to touch US$2,670 in its first quote of 2024.

In essence, these are the lowest ever quotes recorded for the WCI in the post Red-Sea Disruption age. Most key trade lanes have indeed reverted to a 12-month low on prices, with the major share of spoils for the latest quotes coming in from the Asia-US trade.

The Asia-US East Coast numbers indicated container rates falling by 22% while the Asia-US West Coast numbers indicated container rates falling by 21%. While 2025 sees a big demand-supply capacity churn with about 1.5 million TEUs worth of container fleet capacity being added, and with the new alliances leading to vessel capacity restructuring leading to schedule reliability being affected, the waiting times which shot up during the Chinese New year phase have come down. However, disruptions do exist in pockets – for instance, the Canadian Rail Car Availability has recorded significant dwell time.

Even as shippers, forwarders and carriers iron out strategies to address and quell this, the upcoming tariff impositions from the US Government on cargo/ goods from China, Canada, Mexico can arrest the fall in rates momentarily until General Rate Increases (GRIs) play their part towards the end of the first quarter of 2025.

The tariff impositions are also expected to invoke some vessel re-routing to the Canada West Coast (cargo originally planned to the US) and further burden the last mile supply chains and chassis availability for rail cars and trucks. While the market eyes and checks on all possible impacts on the tariff move in terms of scheduling and costs, there are also news coming on reciprocity of tariffs between the United States and the European Union.

March 2025 has a lot of unpredictability in the air, though the Drewry commentary conveyed that they expect the rates to continue to decrease next week due to increased shipping capacity.

Author of the article: Gautham Krishnan

Gautham Krishnan is a logistics professional with Fluor Corporation, in project logistics and analytics, and has worked in the areas of Project Management, Business Development and Government Consulting. He has been awarded the 30-under-30 Rising Supply Chain Star in 2023-24 by Institute of Supply Management- ISM, USA and was also bestowed the AntwerpXL 40-under-40 award for the year 2023, as one of the upcoming, future leaders in the project logistics space.

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