The spot exchange rate for -led trans-Pacific trade in October and November seems to have bottomed out in December. Carriers and shippers expect the exchange rate to fluctuate in a narrow range in the next few months, indicating that US demand may continue to remain weak, while China's exports will further decline due to the arrival of the New Year.
"What I want to say is that in the past two to three weeks, we have seen these interest rates and interest rate indexes now bottom out, and I expect this to continue until 2023," the CEO of Ocean Network Express (ONE) said at a press conference.
it is understood that carriers will continue to cancel trans-Pacific voyages, but they cannot stop fast enough to keep up with the decline in cargo volume. According to Sea-Intelligence data, aircraft carriers on the eastbound trans-Pacific route accounted for 28% of the total capacity deployed in September, 29.1 in October and 24.3 in November. In contrast, operators accounted for only 2.1% of capacity in September 2019, 12.2% in October 2019 and 6.6% in November of that year.
Air and Air Company's capacity decreased by 21.3% in December. So far, liners have announced a gap of 10.1% of total production capacity in January.
operators and industry analysts said that the outlook for the rate environment in the second half of 2023 is still quite uncertain. Consumer demand may rebound and retailers adjust inventories in time; of course, it is possible that the U.S. economy will experience a longer and deeper recession, and demand will remain weak until 2024. The return to normal seasonal freight and freight rates will depend on the speed and strength of the U.S. economy's recovery in 2023.
the National Retail Federation (NRF) lowered its forecast for U.S. imports for the rest of 2022 in October this year, it also expects further declines by early 2023.
"The growth of US imports has lost momentum, especially for goods from Asia." Ben Hackett, founder of Hackett Associates, said the recent reduction in the carrier's transportation capacity shows that even as consumers continue to spend, the demand for goods from retailers with sufficient inventory is also declining.
NRF expects that the slowdown in US imports will continue until early 2023, with a year-on-year decline of nearly 5% to 2.06 million TEU in January 2023, the same level as in January 2021.
Nixon, who the ONE championship, had past experience suggesting a rebound could be strong because of a significant drop in freight traffic in recent months. "If we have a long period of low freight volume, this usually means that it will appear in the future with higher freight volume.