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ANALYSTS
differ sharply in forecasting the transpacific
trade this year, with some doubting that
there will be much of a peak season at all
while others expect slight or even substantial
improvement.
Gloomy
Drewry Shipping Maritime Research and Alphaliner
analysts expect the transpacific trade might
not see a peak season this year despite
signs of economic improvements emerging.
The
tone of August edition of the Cass Freight
Index report was quite conservative. It
believed there would be a slow growth in
the US economy, but feared that it might
be a short-lived rebound.
However,
the August Global Port Tracker takes a sanguine
view on the remainder of the year and says
that the US retailers have started to stock
up for the upcoming sales season.
Both
Drewry and Alphaliner believed the 2013
transpacific peak season is likely to be
slack owing to overcapacity, withdrawals
of sailing, lower vessel utilisation and
falling freight rates.
Alphaliner's
figures indicated that weekly capacity on
the Far East-North America trade lane hit
403,000 TEU in August, up 7.9 per cent compared
to the same period last year.
It
said several carriers, including the New
World Alliance carriers (APL, HMM and MOL),
Evergreen, CSCL and UASC, have deployed
"significant capacity additions"
on transpacific route.
Besides,
Drewry's report said: "Unless the peak
season materialises more materially than
last year's non-event, further sailings
will be cancelled, followed by service withdrawals
after September.
"Average
container traffic for the two-month period,
1,013,000 TEU, was almost the same as in
April, 1,005,000 TEU, which does not auger
well for this year's peak season,"
it noted, adding that although there were
lots of talks about the US economic recovery,
there was little evidence of it.
Carriers
have taken a wait-and-see attitude towards
the status quo. "No new [transpacific]
services were announced after the introduction
of Evergreen's CP2 service in May, and only
minor changes were made to port pairs and
vessel upgrades/swaps. On the other hand,
just four sailings were cancelled in June
compared to seven in May, followed by none
in July," said the eastbound tradelane
report.
"This
resulted in eastbound vessel capacity increasing
3.6 per cent between May and June, followed
by another 0.8 per cent between June and
July. As there was little change in average
vessel size during the period - 6,131- to
6,088- to 6,116-TEU - it must come from
sailing cancellations," the report
said.
As
a result, the freight rates shrank accordingly.
The Shanghai Containerised Freight Index
(SCFI) Shanghai-US west coast spot rates
fell 9.7 per cent to $1,889 per FEU on August
23 from $2,093 per FEU on May 24.
Besides,
the August edition of the Cass Freight Index
report said it is still too early to say
the US economy had gained the momentum for
significant growth although the world's
biggest economy continues to experience
rebound, especially in exports.
"[US]
GDP for the second quarter was revised up
from 1.7 per cent to 2.5 per cent. Much
of the rise was due to very strong exports,
which grew at an annual rate of 8.6 per
cent in second quarter. This rate is probably
not sustainable for the rest of the year,"
said Rosalyn Wilson, the writer of the Cass
Freight Index report.
"The
Institute for Supply Management's PMI grew
0.3 per cent in August and rose for the
third month in a row. The production index,
however, fell 2.6 per cent in August ...
Employment reports have shown steady growth
in the economy and unemployment has inched
downward.
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