The London headquartered Baltic Exchange will be contributing to China’s Maritime Silk Road project through close collaboration with the Ningbo Shipping Exchange. The first step of this collaboration will see container freight rates from Ningbo to Europe and the Middle East provided by the Ningbo Shipping Exchange freely available on the Baltic Exchange’s website from 23 October 2015. The move is part of a drive by the Baltic Exchange, the leading provider of independent bulk shipping benchmarks, to promote its services for the Chinese market.
The weekly Ningbo Containerised Freight Index covers the movement of 20 ft, 40 ft and High Cube containers. The index is a composite of the three box types and covers Ningbo to East Mediterranean (Piraeus & Istanbul), West Mediterranean (Barcelona, Valencia, Genoa), Europe (Hamburg & Rotterdam) and the Middle East (Dammam & Dubai). It is based on transactional data from business conducted by a panel of 11 Ningbo based freight forwarders on Ningbo Exchange’s e-trading platform and factors in various surcharges including bunkers, port congestion, peak season and Suez Canal fees.
Welcoming the additional service, Baltic Exchange Chief Executive Jeremy Penn said: “The publication of the Ningbo Containerised Freight Index on our site underlines our ever-closer ties with the Chinese market. Handling over 20m TEU per year and servicing 228 different destinations, Ningbo is one of the world’s leading container ports. The Chinese government’s Maritime Silk Road project is not only about major port investments but also about closer collaboration with international partners. The Baltic Exchange has its own set of highly regarded independent indices that focus on the dry and wet bulk trades.
Collaboration with organisations such as the Ningbo Shipping Exchange helps to raise the profile of our products in China.”Dong Shanhua, Ningbo Shipping Exchange General Manager said: “The port of Ningbo-Zhoushan has the largest cargo throughput in the world, and has sustained high growth rates over the past 10 years, accompanied by the high growth of international and national trade in the East China. We commenced the research of a container index from the establishment of Ningbo Shipping Exchange in 2011 and first released Ningbo Containerised Freight Index in September 2013. We hope we can extend presence of our products in the global market through the collaboration with Baltic Exchange.”
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