Shanghai container freight rates this week dip 1.7 percent to reach their lowest level in five weeks.

This is the second consecutive week that the rate index has fallen - this time by 1.7 percent on top of a 1.2 percent drop last week, but a total increase of 8.0 percent over the previous three weeks.

This is according to the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI), which measures spot prices for containerized freight from Shanghai to a number of destinations worldwide.

Compared to the same week last year, rates have fallen 68 percent.

The index peaked in the first week of 2022 at 5109.60, where bottlenecks following the coronavirus pandemic had multiplied the rates.

Especially in the second half of last year, the rate index began sliding as the bottlenecks were dissolved.

Spot rates describe freight prices, which - unlike long-term contracts - change continuously, and the index shows the price of a forty-foot container.

(Translated using DeepL with additional editing by Simon Øst Vejbæk)