1Q12 Carrier Financial Results News

Container Business Faces Test of Resolve

London - Drewry’s latest quarterly Container Forecaster report highlights that, while carriers have successfully implemented a series of GRIs recently which will improve their battered financial position, there are still a number of threats which could derail this and that healthy industry profitability is by no means guaranteed. The perception might be that the industry has turned a corner and the extremely low freight rates seen on the Asia-North Europe trade at the end of last year are now behind us. We concur with this general view to an extent, and we forecast that east-west freight rates, including fuel, will rise by as much 13.7 percent this year.