13th week of regular decline of container ocean freight as on 11th Sept 2025 - assessment of logisticswall team

Image credit - https://www.drewry.co.uk  

Since last 13 weeks, there has been regular decline in Drewry World Container Index WCI and per its last assessment on 11th October it fell by 3% to $2,044 USD per 40’ Container.

Also since last 2 weeks the freight for Trans-pacific trade lanes increased going against the global trend due to GRI (General rate increase) announcement by several carriers. It is happening now due to push in exports from China to USA before the arrival of holidays for Chinese Golden Holidays

There has been regular fall from Asia to Europe – The freight for Shanghai to Rotterdam fell by 10% last week, the reason being increase in capacity and weak demand.

It is expected that Container Ocean freight will be weak for FY 2025 - second half.

Below is the image of falling freight as per Drewry WCI

Image credit - https://www.drewry.co.uk  

What is the methodology for WCI

The index assessment is done on basis of top 8 container route indices and all are reported on 40’ containers only, below are 8 routes with their overall volume and weight in the assessment

Image credit - https://www.drewry.co.uk  

Assessment of logisticswall team – the freight will fall further till end of October 2025 due to

• Arrival of Golden Week Holiday in China (China exports will be closed from 1st to 8th October 2025), as port calls the major trade lanes ships will be omitted, we have mentioned omission details in our earlier blogs.

• Since 14th October America will start penalty fee on US port thus the largest ships will move to non-USA services creating a space gap leading increase in supply of shipping and comparably low demand than USA in those trade lanes and then the freight will fall further. We have explained these details in our earlier blog.

• Tariff implemented by USA has already weakened the global trade and if the situation remains same the exports & imports will be low leading further reduction in supply.

Though there might be some increase in freight in Nov’ 25 due to high demand before Christmas.

Will keep you updated.