Is a "freight war" looming on the horizon? A Raise the possibility of a future conflict in the market of Containerized sea freight tariffs is Sea-Intelligence, a company specialized in analyzing the trend of this sector, according to which this possibility It is far from remote. For Sea-Intelligence, "with the shipping companies that are sitting on piles of money and that are further encouraged by a third quarter absolutely profitable, we could end up in a situation where it occurs Another price war reminiscent of the one seen in 2015-2016."

Sea-Intelligence comes to formulate this possible scenario analyzing the current behavior of shipping companies containerized in view of the Chinese New Year, traditional period of holidays in China that lasts for about two weeks and which next year will take place from 21 January to 5 February. "Usually - recalled the CEO of society, Alan Murphy - with the Chinese New Year you sees a slowdown in production in Asia and companies navigation cancel departures to align the offer with the question. In 2020 - he recalled again - we witnessed a extension of Chinese New Year due to the Covid epidemic, while in both 2021 and 2022 shipping companies have Maintained high capacity to meet high levels of the question. Given that demand growth is now stagnant and freight value is still falling - it has deduced Murphy - it would be logical that shipping companies cancel additional capacity during Chinese New Year of 2023 to try to stem the bleeding of freight. Instead It's not like that."

The company reached this conclusion. comparing the hold capacity fielded in 2023 and with that of 2019 and with the average growth rate of capacity in the period 2016-2019, from which - Murphy has detected - "An extraordinary increase in capacity can be seen employed, with the Asia-North America west coast route that is recording capacity growth of 35%-38%, with Asia-North America east coast with a staggering increase in 57%-59% and with Asia-Northern Europe with an increase of 28%-42%, while Asia-Mediterranean is the only route closer to pre-pandemic levels'.

Murphy said: "This development is rather worrying given that, despite the drop in demand, The capacity implemented during the Chinese New Year of 2023 should be higher than that implemented in 2021 when the Demand was absolutely increasing."

"Whether demand continues to be slow or slow contract definitively - concluded Murphy - considered these capacity levels, freight rates will continue to decline."