INDUSTRY-INFORMATION

LAST year was another record-busting year for rail volumes on the New Silk Road, but a persistent bottleneck at the Kazakhstan border led to lengthy delays for both rail and road freight. According to Chinese media, China-Europe rail volumes reached 1.14 million TEU last year, up 56 per cent on the year before, while figures

CHINA’s busiest port area, Ningbo-Zhoushan in the eastern province of Zhejiang, saw its cargo throughput exceed 1.17 billion tonnes in 2020, ranking first in the world for a 12th consecutive year, reports Beijing’s China Economic Net. The port’s annual container throughput surpassed 28.7 million TEU last year, ranking third globally. Both cargo and container throughputs

SHIPPING goods from China to Europe has tripled over the past eight weeks, causing record highs due to a shortage of empty containers from the Covid crisis, reports London’s Financial Times. The cost of shipping a 40 foot container from Asia to northern Europe has increased from US$2,000 to more than $9,000 in November.

SOARING freight rates and delivery delays have sparked a global backlash by companies frustrated about the destructive mix of deteriorating service and higher ocean shipping costs, reports Bloomberg. Trade associations in China have raised antitrust concerns with the government, while similar pressure is simmering in Brussels, where the European Shippers’ Council petitioned the European Commission

THE latest statistics from Baltic Exchange Air Freight Index (BAI) show that airfreight rates on key trade lanes declined in January compared with a month earlier but remain far above last year’s levels.