Commodity traders will pay higher freight rates for the next few years as world seaborne trade grows faster than new vessels can be built, a Turkish shipper said on Friday.
Freight costs, already at least 40 percent higher than last year's average, will keep rising as China drives world trade and old ships are phased out, said Levent Karacelik, chairman of Marvel International Management and Transportation Co Ltd.
"This is my 34th year in the shipping market and even I'm saying it's reached a crazy stage," Karecelik said. "But there are reasons." Karacelik told a conference organised by Ukraine's APK-Inform agency that an average one-year time charter for a Capsize vessel was $63,500 per day as of February 16, compared with the 2006 average of $45,246.