{"id":471159,"date":"2010-03-25T07:55:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-25T11:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"e2249889-c78b-43e3-9643-b1d7d4aa587b:412731"},"modified":"2010-03-25T07:55:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-25T11:55:00","slug":"shippers-still-struggling-to-keep-afloat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/471159","title":{"rendered":"Shippers still struggling to keep afloat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sure, your portfolio probably took it on the chin during the past couple of years, but you can always comfort yourself with this thought\u2014at least you weren\u2019t a ship owner. Charter rates for container ships soared above US$27,500 per day in the heady months of late 2007. Now they\u2019ve plunged to around US$4,600. About 474 ships, or 9% of the global shipping fleet, are still floating idle despite a gradually recovering global economy.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/international\/business\/0,1518,685207,00.html\" >downturn in global shipping<\/a> has hammered German shippers with special ferocity, according to Spiegel, the German newsmagazine. Many German ship owners took on debt to finance the construction of new ships back in 2007. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an open question whether ship operators will be able to pay back those loans. Defaults could have widespread repercussions. \u201cThe crisis is\u2026eating its way into the foundations of German banks,\u201d Spiegel says. It estimates that HSH Nordbank, Commerzbank, Nord\/Lb, Ipex and DVD Bank hold close to 100 billion euros in ship loans.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re counting on economic growth to quickly absorb the spare capacity, think again. \u201cSome 1,000 ships ordered by German shipowners have not yet been delivered,\u201d Spiegel says. \u201cThey include about 300 giant container ships, with an estimated value of about 30 billion euros.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>Freelance business journalist Ian McGugan blogs for the Financial Post.<\/i>&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/network.nationalpost.com\/NP\/aggbug.aspx?PostID=412731\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sure, your portfolio probably took it on the chin during the past couple of years, but you can always comfort yourself with this thought\u2014at least you weren\u2019t a ship owner. Charter rates for container ships soared above US$27,500 per day in the heady months of late 2007. Now they\u2019ve plunged to around US$4,600. About 474 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4060,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-471159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4060"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}