Operational challenges, risks and costs for the global liner trade have moved into the “high pressure” zone, as measured by the CN meta Index.
Compiled by Container News, the index looks at several metrics to gauge combined outlooks for the industry – overall pressure, capacity dynamics, market conditions across the globe, and security considerations, including geopolitical risks.
The index’s latest score of 586, “reflects continued strain across major trade lanes, driven primarily by elevated freight rates on East-West routes and reinforced by ongoing geopolitical and operational risks,” CN says.
Despite British TEU-tracker, Container Trades Statistics (CTS), finding that Asia-Pacific trades were “the biggest loser” last year, freight rates on trade from Asia into both the US East and West coasts “show strong pricing”.
It shows “limited capacity flexibility and persistent cost pressure for cargo moving into North America,” CN says.
“At the same time, rates on the Far East-North Europe corridor remain elevated, confirming that pressure on the Asia-Europe trade has not materially eased.”
And yet, despite the pressure that the global container trade experienced because of last year’s volatility, the liner industry has proved relatively robust, growing by 193 million twenty-foot boxes in 2025, CTS chief executive Nigel Pusey has said.
This was a marked improvement on the 184 million TEU containers recorded in 2024, and represented a 4.7% increase in demand, said Pusey.
Freight rates, in comparison, fell by 18%.
However, he told The Loadstar Podcast that it must be remembered that “shipping defies normal demand supply economics”.
Inter-Asia shipping showed the most regional concentrated growth last year, Pusey said, recording about 50 million TEU, or roughly 26% of demand growth.
Ocean cargo between Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, especially to the west of the continent, also proved resilient, growing by about 27%.
Although rates between Asia and the US were holding on to strong pricing, TEU data at the end of 2025 showed that demand had fallen by about 1.7 million TEU, Pusey said
It’s “a massive shift in cargo”, he said.
