Freight rates for container ships will decrease in 2023

In the conditions of changes in the supply and demand balance in the market, the rates for container transportation will continue to decrease.

“Shipping has returned to normal conditions. Now we will again have to fight for every container to ensure that our ships are loaded,” Hapag Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen shared the forecast.

At the same time, he expects that rates will not fall below the level of cost of transportation, which remains at a high level due to high time charter rates, bunker prices and the need to reduce the carbon footprint.

This year, more ships began to be sent to docking, and the volume of write-offs also increased, while before that, in conditions of high demand, shipowners continued to operate old ships, CEO Hapag Lloyd noted.