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Intra-Europe container traffic rises, but fails to boost sagging rates

INTRA-European container volumes have been enjoying double-digit growth levels in the last year-and-a-half, but freight rates remain at historic lows.

The latest figures from Container Trades Statistics show that in the first quarter of 2014 intra-European volumes surged 17.4 per cent year on year to 1.37 million TEU.

The fastest growing of the sub-routes that make up this trade lane was intra-Mediterranean, which recorded a 25 per cent increase year on year to 573,362 TEU.

The overall intra-Europe increase was most strongly felt in March, when volumes reached 515,000 TEU compared with 424,900 TEU a year earlier, Lloyd's List reported.

Total volumes for 2013 were 11.15 per cent ahead of 2012 at 4.7 million TEU, with double-digit increases coming in all but four months of the year.

But the CTS price index shows that freight rates were lower in January and February than they were 12 months earlier, while in March prices were also down.

Last year' prices spent most of the year below the 2012 level and rates remain less than the 2008 average, though ahead of 2011 levels.

The average monthly index level for 2014 stood at 81.3 at the end of March, while the average for 2013 was 82.3 and 2012 recorded a monthly average of 84.3.