Empty shipping containers used for export have been piling up in Shanghai, Ningbo, Guangdong, and other major Chinese ports since December, as China’s foreign trade continues to decline. The latest data from ContainerxChange, a global container trading platform, shows that in the sixth week of 2023 (February 5–11), the CAx (Container Availability Index) of Shanghai…

LOS ANGELES—U.S. imports of goods in ocean shipping containers in December fell to levels approaching those last seen before the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report said on Tuesday. Demand for kitchen appliances, furniture, big-screen TVs, apparel, and other retail goods softened late last year as record inflation bit into disposable income and consumers shifted spending…

OSLO—Shipping group Maersk warned on Wednesday of slowing demand for transport and logistics as a global recession looms and cut its forecast for container demand this year, even as it beat third-quarter earnings expectations. “It is clear that freight rates have peaked and started to normalize during the quarter, driven by both decreasing demand and…

Global container freight rates have been falling since March, and the Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) has nearly halved in the past six months. The third quarter of each year is the traditional peak season for freight. However, this year, the freight industry has experienced a downshift due to global inflation, weakened economic outlooks, and shrunken…

Global container freight rates have been falling since March, and the Freightos Baltic Index (FBX) has nearly halved in the past six months. The third quarter of each year is the traditional peak season for freight. However, this year, the freight industry has experienced a downshift due to global inflation, weakened economic outlooks, and shrunken…

Omicron outbreaks have exacerbated shipping congestion across the globe, with major Chinese and U.S. ports affected. Experts forecast that supply chain bottlenecks will continue into at least the second half of this year. With a fresh wave of COVID-19 outbreaks spreading in China, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials have launched mass lockdowns and testing, driven…

COPENHAGEN—Top container shipping firm A.P. Moller-Maersk on Tuesday warned its customers it was still struggling to move goods around the world as the easing of congestion is taking longer than the Danish company had hoped for. The pandemic has prompted shortages of container ships and logjams at ports at a time of very high consumer…

VICTORIA—The Canadian Coast Guard says it believes that many, if not all, of the 109 containers that fell from a cargo ship off Victoria in late October have sunk. The containers were tossed from the MV Zim Kingston during a storm near the entrance to the Juan de Fuca Strait around the time a fire…

COPENHAGEN/LONDON—The stranding of a container ship in the Suez Canal has created disruptions in the global shipping industry that could take weeks and possibly months to clear, top container shipping lines said. Around 30 percent of the world’s shipping container volume—including goods like sofas, consumer electronics, apparel, and shoes—moves through the 193 km (120 mile)…