The price of shipping goods from Asia to Europe has soared over the past year. But, over recent months, the rise has been particularly dramatic. Here’s a chart put together by Xeneta, an outfit that specialises in data on what it costs to book space on one of the 40ft containers across the world’s oceans:
That’s about a $6,000 rise in shipping costs per container since the end of April.
Not only has it become far more expensive to ship goods across the Indian Ocean and up the Suez Canal, the service has become poorer. Emile Naus, a partner specialising in supply chain management at consultants BearingPoint, says exporters are full of complaints: