A number of Vietnamese companies will have to suffer higher fees as many foreign shipping companies have announced to raise fees in September amid weak purchasing power in the European Union market, reported Vietnam News Brief Service.
Some shipping enterprises including CSCL, "K'' Line, Hapag-Lloyd and NYK have plans to raise charges on routes between Asia and the EU to compensate for rising material and fuel costs, regardless of falling goods volumes on the routes.
Goods exports to the EU have declined steadily over the past months due to falling demand from the market.
Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said that the debt crisis in Europe is the main cause for the slump inVietnam's seafood exports to the EU since early this year. In the first quarter, seafood exports to the market dropped 7.9 per cent year-on-year while the second quarter reported a decline of 15.5 per cent.
The EU in the second quarter dropped from the first to the second position among key importers of Vietnam's seafood. The buying power from the EU has yet to improve so far, VASEP said.
Early this month, MSC and Hapag-Lloyd imposed peak season surcharge of USD350 per TEU. Hapag-Lloyd, besides extending peak season surcharge, also imposed a general rate increase of USD250 a TEU from August 15.
Currently, Vietnamese firms are subject to at least 10 surcharges by foreign ship owners, including cargo services, container imbalance charge, port congestion surcharge, hygiene fee, cargo fixing charge and many other surcharges.
Source: Cargonews Asia
