Interim Ocean GRI’s
By Splatty • May 7th, 2008 • Category: Seafreight
Ocean contract season is upon us and who doesn’t love it? The majority of carrier contracts expired at the end of April and yet many forwarders have signed only a handful contracts. In fact, last week, I heard that only 30% to 40% of BCO’s (beneficial cargo owners) had signed contracts in place. Even though many of the contracts have not been finalized, steamship lines are pushing full GRI’s (general rate increases) onto many NVOCC’s for inbound U.S. freight. The GRI’s have prompted many forwarders to implement a interim GRI until the contracts have been finalized. We have seen a few customer letters sent out by a forwarders announcing the GRI.
This is a time of year that I actually dread. Shippers are looking to finalize new rates and we get inundated with rate requests from customers looking to either benchmark rates against their current provider or are genuinely looking at reducing costs with more aggressive rates. And with the ocean contracts not yet finalized, it makes responding to RFQ’s somewhat of a guessing game. The good news is that the majority of the contracts should be finalized over the next few weeks.
Stumble it!
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