Maersk signs up to the New York Shipping Exchange
Maersk Line has become the sixth container carrier to sign up to the groundbreaking New York Shipping Exchange (NYSHEX).
NYSHEX, which started operations in August last year, is promoting its digital forward freight contract for container shipping, a world first.
Maersk Line joins Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM, MOL, Cosco and OOCL in working with NYSHEX.
NYSHEX provides the global shipping industry with a simplified and standardised over-the-counter exchange for entering enforceable freight contracts.
Buyers of container shipping services: shippers and NVOCCs, use NYSHEX at no cost. Initially, they must be pre-accredited with NYSHEX to get started. Ocean carriers pay a transaction fee of $5 per teu.
Interviewed by Splash last year, Gordon Downes, the CEO of NYSHEX and a former Maersk employee, argued there was billions of dollars liners could make each year via his digital platform.
“This can be achieved even in the current market merely by improving contract compliance,” Downes said. “The principle is; if shippers and carriers can begin to truly rely on each other, everyone can reduce cost and everyone stands to benefit. Shippers can better plan their supply chains, reducing working capital and contingency costs. Carriers can improve their networks to provide services that better match the needs of the shippers, and at the same time avoid deploying ships that would otherwise sail underutilised.”
In its first five months of operations, more than 99.8% of the containers booked via NYSHEX moved exactly as contracted, a vast improvement on the industry average where only 76% of shipments are shipped as contracted or as booked.
For Maersk Line, the NYSHEX announcement is the latest in a string of digital commitments it has been making in the past 12 months.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal last week, Søren Skou, the CEO of A.P. Moeller-Maersk, stressed: “Our industry must develop new technology and software solutions in open, innovative communities. We need to digitize from the inside of our business, but at the same time, finding the best solutions will require our industry to partner with companies across a wide range of industries.”