The dawn of Red Sea shipping is emerging, and the industry is optimistic about full recovery in 2025
Sunny Worldwide LogisticsIt is a logistics company with more than 20 years of transportation experience, focusing on markets such as Europe, America, Canada, Australia, Southeast Asia, etc., and is more than the owner of the cargo owner.
A new survey by Drewry, a well-known shipping consulting agency, shows that more than half of the shipping industry respondents predict that the container ship market will fully resume the Red Sea route by 2025.
The survey, which covered 300 shipping industry-related persons, was consistent with the forecast of Osama Rabie, director of the Suez Canal Authority. Rabie predicts that starting from the end of March, the shipping flow of the Suez Canal will gradually return to normal.
Among them, 29% of the respondents held a relatively conservative attitude, and they believed that container shipping might not return to the Red Sea until 2026. "We estimate that the Red Sea route diverter has resulted in a reduction of effective capacity for container shipping by about 9%. When these capacity return to the market, shipping companies will face pressure to fall freight rates unless they can rebalance supply and demand in other ways. ”
Despite the industry's mostly optimistic about the reopening of the Red Sea, Drewry stressed that the situation in the region remains very fragile. "The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas is extremely fragile, and Trump's intervention makes the situation even more unpredictable. Shortly after the investigation was completed, U.S. President Trump violated diplomatic practices and called on Israel to cancel the ceasefire agreement. , and threatened that if all hostages were not released by noon on February 15, the situation would be completely out of control. Subsequently, Hamas announced the postponement of the original hostage release plan. "
In addition, Yemen's Houthi armed forces announced that they would launch an attack on Israel if Israel does not comply with the ceasefire agreement. This news obviously caused a response in the shipping industry. In an analysis note, investment bank Jefferies pointed out that container futures prices have risen for four consecutive days, especially the SCFI Asia-Europe route index, which has become increasingly active since its launch in 2023.
"Yesterday's news about the possible breakdown of the Israeli and Hamas ceasefire agreement due to differences seems to boost sentiment because the Red Sea route is unlikely to resume in the near term if the ceasefire agreement is broken," Jefferies said.
At the same time, Deluri also investigated the shipping industry's views on Trump's recent announcement of punitive tariffs on many countries. Respondents were asked to predict the effective tariff rate (total tariff amount/total customs value) in the United States by the end of 2025. 32% of respondents believe the tax rate will be between 5% and 10%, compared with the forecast in September last year that it was only 2.4%. In addition, 13% of respondents expect the tax rate to be as high as 20%, a level never seen since the Great Depression in 1929. Respondents expect punitive tariffs will be mainly targeted at China, Mexico and Canada.
