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Spot rates out of Hong Kong to the US have been on the rise this week after dropping at the start of the month due to Washington imposing duties on the import of e-commerce goods.
Sources indicate that spot prices from Hong Kong to the US have increased by more than $0.40 cents since the start of the week to above $4.50 per kg.
The increases come after a rapid decline in prices at the start of the month when the US introduced tariffs and customs checks on e-commerce goods being exported from China to the US. In early April, the US also ramped up tariffs on other imports from China to 145%.
Since then, the US has reduced the tariff rate for e-commerce goods and reduced its overall tariff level to 30% for a period of 90 days.
The tariff reduction is likely to have resulted in shippers rushing to move cargo to take advantage of the lower duties.
Since the start of May, carriers have removed freighter capacity from the transpacific trade to better match supply and demand. This could mean pressure is also coming on the supply side.
According to statistics from Rotate, headhaul Asia Pacific-North America widebody freighter capacity over the first three days of this week stood at around 35,000 tonnes compared with 40,000 tonnes over the same three days a month earlier.
However, it should also be noted that prices on the trade lane remain below the levels recorded at the end of March/early April, when sources indicated spot rates had reached around $5.30-$5.40 per kg as shippers looked to move goods before the implementation of tariffs.
Indeed, IATA said that air cargo demand in March reached record levels as shippers front-loaded cargo.
In contrast, figures from data provider WorldACD show that for the week ending 11 May (week 19), airfreight volumes from China and Hong Kong to the US declined by 10% compared with week 18, which had already suffered a 14% decline on a week earlier.
Data from the Baltic Exchange Airfreight Index, using TAC Index data, show that the average rate from Hong Kong to North America over the first four months of the year, taking into account both spot and contract rates, stood at $5.40 per kg, although pure spot rates will have fluctuated a lot more during this period.
