maritime

Shipping costs high despite lower fuel costs

The price of transporting a container has risen 50 percent recently.

Industry insiders said that they expect the price to go down.

la prensa

expensive: In the last few months, the cost of transporting containers in Panama has bucked an international trend and have gone up, despite falling fuel prices.1112124

Although the price of fuel has declined in recent months, the cost of transporting containers in Panama has risen, in some cases as much as 50 percent in recent months.

Customs official Yasmina De Hoyos said that carriers are charging an average of $350 to transport a container from ports in Colón to Panama City, an increase of between $100 and $130 from what they were charging just a few months ago.

The cost has also risen for transporting containers from the Balboa port.

“Before, one would pay about $100 to transport a container from Balboa to the mall in Los Pueblos, but now the charge is between $220 and $250,” De Hoyos said.

Carriers are keeping their prices high because they fear fuel costs may increase again. Many did not raise prices fast enough, which resulted in huge losses when gasoline prices spiked earlier this year.

They also point to the country's inflation rate, which has raised prices across the board.

But Rubén Karamañites, president of the Panama Maritime Chamber, said that he expects prices to drop over the next few months because of lower fuel prices.

These price increases are an anomaly when compared to shipping prices in other countries, where prices have been going down.

This is even true at the Panama Canal, which tends to charge more for auxiliary services during the peak shipping months from May until November, meaning that prices will start to decline beginning next month.