Asia trade drives container freight derivatives

Container freight volumes have exploded during the past decade with trade flows to and from China a major driver of this growth. Up until this year, however, end-users had little ability to manage risks associated with movements in container freight prices. That may be set to change. Kathy Wang reports

Container transportation has emerged as one of the fastest-growing segments of the global freight industry during the past couple of decades, particularly trades to and from China. From the mid-1990s to 2008, container freight traffic tripled to 136 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), valued at $137 billion, according to the Singapore Exchange (SGX). Asian container traffic is projected to account for 68% of the world container exports and 56% of world container imports by 2015, according