Rising average container prices and a massive increase in one-way pickup rates amid container shortage are pinching exporters and shippers in India at a time when the shipping season is at its peak, according to the monthly container logistics report by Container xChange, an operating platform for container logistic companies.
The report titled ‘Where Are All the Containers?’ shows that the average container prices increased by 58 percent last month as compared to June 2022 while the one-way pickup cost skyrocketed 200 percent in August from July.
July generally marks the beginning of the peak shipping season.
“India has withered the rising global disruptions with more resilience than many other countries. However, the ripple effect of disruptions caused well over the past two years has caused significant market and container imbalances in the Indian shipping industry,” said the report.
Amid global container shortage as demand surged after the pandemic, the government is in the process of coming up with a roadmap to boost container manufacturing in the country with a cluster-based approach, media reports said earlier.
"India’s decision to expand its container manufacturing will come on an opportune time. Expanding domestic manufacturing will help ease the strain and make containers available for other nations despite containers being stuck at western countries and China," said Christian Roeloffs, Cofounder and CEO, Container xChange.
Average container prices up significantly since pandemic
According to the report, India has been appearing on the list of costliest ports for both 20 ft DCs (dry containers) as well as 40 ft HCs (high cube containers).
While the average rates for 20 ft DCs have gone up by 61.15 percent from $900 in July 2020 to $2317 in July 2022, prices for 40 ft HCs have risen by 57.34 percent from $1800 in July 2020 to $2317 in July 2022.
“The country has a vast coastline, and this gives it a very good opportunity to expand its shipping economy. However, there are many roadblocks, hinterland transportation being one, cost of containers being another. Our platform always shows Indian ports as one of the costlier ports. This is also because there are many charges that make the movement of containers costlier from India,” it said.
However, the average trading prices for these boxes, for cargo-worthy 20 ft DCs, in Mundra, Nhava Sheva, and Chennai fell marginally to $2384, $2362, and $2356.
Source: Container xChange
On the other hand, for cargo-worthy 40 ft HCs, the trading prices dropped sharply in Mumbai and Mundra by 5.51 percent to $3773 and 8.85 percent to $3,605, respectively.
“As the sailing disruptions followed by container shortages continue this year, many shipping lines have skipped India port calls to maintain schedule integrity. This has subsequently affected the demand and has further led to a gradual yet marginal decline in average prices for cargo-worthy containers,” said the report.
For leasing boxes from China to India, users had to pay $187.5 for 20DCs and $175 for 40HCs in July, it added.
