Increase anticipates Transpacific Stabilization Agreement’s planned rate hike. The spot rate for shipping a 40-foot container from Hong to Los Angeles jumped 10 percent so far this week compared to the week ended Jan. 10, according to price data provided to Drewry Shipping Consultants by non-vessel-operating common carriers in Hong Kong.

The spot rate this week is $1,416 per FEU, compared to $1,284 per FEU last week.“It’s the direct result of the Transpacific Stabilization Agreement’s plan to raise freight rates on Jan. 15,” said Philip Damas, managing director of Drewry Supply Chain Advisors in London. “We have seen quite a solid discipline by the carriers to push for their emergency rate increase.”

Earlier this month the TSA called for a mid-contract emergency rate increase as of Jan. 15 of $400 per 40-foot container shipped from Asia to U.S. West Coast ports to tide its carrier members over until they can seek an $800 per FEU increase on that trade lane in their 2010-2011 contracts, which they will negotiate this spring.

Damas expects to see another large increase in rates next week. Carriers are implementing the emergency rate increase over these two weeks, he said. The trans-Pacific spot rate increases are part of a strong recovery in freight rates worldwide that Drewry is seeing this year. “We are in a completely different pricing environment now,” Damas said.

Spot rates on the trans-Pacific trade lane have been flat or down week-to-week in the weeks following the end of the peak shipping season in October.

Although the spot rate from Hong Kong to Los Angeles is jumping up this week, it is still 0.8 percent lower than in the same week a year ago, which was, in turn, 4.4 percent below the spot rate in the second week of January in 2008.

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