Since the second half of the year began, on-time arrival rates for ships at major Asian ports have fallen. The shipping industry says worsening arrival delays could increase upward pressure on ocean freight rates.
According to Denmark-based maritime analytics firm Sea-Intelligence on the 8th, the on-time arrival rate in July for 14 major ports in Asia averaged 43.5%, down 13.9 percentage points from the previous month. That means only about 43 out of 100 scheduled calls arrived on time. The average delay for ships arriving later than scheduled also rose by 0.59 day from the previous month to 6.06 days.
As a result, the global on-time arrival rate for container ships in July fell 6.1 percentage points from the previous month to 56.4%. In effect, one of every two ships coming to load or discharge cargo missed its scheduled timeline. Sea-Intelligence said the drop in on-time performance was the largest since January 2021, when the aftermath of COVID-19 severely disrupted global ocean logistics.
Han Hee-jung, Director at Korea Ocean Business Corporation (KOBC), said, "The global on-time arrival rate has generally hovered around 70%," adding, "This year, with increased cargo volumes due to tariff policy and many external variables such as typhoons, punctuality has unusually deteriorated."
By port, China's Shanghai Port had the lowest on-time rate at 21.0%, down 19.2 percentage points from the previous month. China's Shekou Port followed at 27.4%, down 17.8 percentage points from the previous month. Malaysia's Port Klang fell 6.6 percentage points to 33.3% from the previous month, while China's Ningbo and Nansha recorded 34.6% and 35.4%, down 20.1 percentage points and 12.2 percentage points, respectively.
Busan Port's on-time arrival rate also fell 7.1 percentage points over the same period to 40.9%. At ports such as Singapore, Qingdao and Yantian, more than half of the ships scheduled to call last month failed to arrive on time. Congestion also increased at Malaysia's Tanjung Pelepas and Vietnam's Vung Tau, where on-time rates had been close to 70%.
The biggest driver of port congestion is higher cargo volumes. Uncertainty over the U.S. government's tariff policy has spurred demand to ship goods as quickly as possible. The U.S. government had imposed a temporary 10% tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act, and demand was high to ship goods before rates rose further. When that temporary tariff expired on the 24th of last month, the U.S. government imposed a 10%–12.5% forced labor tariff under Section 301 of the same law.
Rising cargo volumes have also increased container ship throughput at major ports worldwide. In the first half of this year, total container throughput at China's ports reached about 182.92 million TEU (1 TEU is one 20-foot container), up 5.9% from a year earlier.
When volumes rise, ships crowd into ports, inevitably delaying arrivals and berthing. As more container ships wait to berth, overall schedules are disrupted and on-time arrival rates fall. Multiple typhoons in recent weeks have compounded the problem, further disrupting port arrivals and departures.
According to maritime analytics firm Linerlytica, last month the container ship capacity waiting to berth at ports worldwide totaled 4.31 million TEU—more than 10% of the entire container ship fleet's capacity. Of the waiting ships, 51.4% were concentrated in North Asia.
As a result, container freight rates are climbing. The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) turned upward in late July and reached 3,509.53 at the end of August, up 2.9% from the prior week. That is 142.9% higher than the same period last year. Rates to the U.S. West Coast and East Coast rose sharply in particular.
Sea-Intelligence said that a situation in which more than half of arriving ships are delayed at major Asian export ports could ripple across the entire ocean network and intensify pressure for rate hikes. Korea Ocean Business Corporation (KOBC) noted in a recent report, "With capacity supply constrained by port congestion, upward pressure on rates along major routes continues."