At $573 per 40-foot-equivilant for Asia-European shipments, the Shanghai Freight Index has hit a record low. The overall index to major routes fell to 898.18, a drop of 2.3% in one week.

Sources are blaming an influx of new large container ships on the Euro-Asian route as being one of the principal reasons for this dramatic decline.

The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) launched in October 2009 has led to the creation of a new tool for exporters and carriers/freight forwarders to use as a hedge against fluctuating freight rates. There are fifteen routes indexed weekly by the SCFI…

Frankfurt airport saw a decline of 9.3% in Air Cargo traffic in October when compared to October 2010. As Europe’s second largest freight hub, it was slightly better news in that cargo tonnage for the first nine months of 2011 was down a mere 0.5% and group traffic down 2%.

Frankfurt’s dramatic decline in October is symptomatic of the global downturn in the Air Cargo market.

CMA CSM has resumed all container services to Libya. It stated that “with the improving political situation in Libya this has led in a significant part of the sanctions being waived by the European Union on September 1st, 2011.” and consequently “CMA CGM will gradually resumes its full service to Libya from Malta.”

CMA CGM plans to operate one weekly service from Malta to Tripoli and one 10 day service from Malta to Benghazi and Misurata.

Vesselsvalue.com reported that as a result of overcapacity billions have been wiped off container fleets value, much to the dismay of containership owners.

New container ships value have dropped as much as 31% since April, according to Seasure shipping Ltd. AP Moller Maersk reported a dive in containership values of 24% in the last 12 months. MSC have seen their fleet drop in value from $8.4 billion to $6.9 billion in the same 12 month period.

Fear and uncertainty are cited as one of the principal factors behind this dramatic price dive.

Below is an excellent video produced by IBEC which illustrates that despite the recession in Ireland, certain sectors in the Irish economy are still buoyant and continuing to grow.

Some of the highlights are:

- There are 960 foreign owned companies in Ireland, employing 138,000 people.

- 8 of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies are located in Ireland.

- 15 of the top 25 medical device companies are located in Ireland.

- More than 50% of the world’s leading financial service companies are based here.

- US investment into Ireland is more than its combined investment into Brazil, Russia, India and China.