The cost of delivering containers with cargo from China to Russia and to Europe has differed several times over since October, analysts at the Gazprombank Economic Forecasting Center (CEP) noted. By mid-December, the container index of the Price Research Center (PRC) amounted to $6159, and delivering a container from the East to Rotterdam would cost $1957, according to the Drewry international index.
“This is the cost of sanctions from both sides,” a logistics company employee explains: for the creation of special carriers working with Russia, for the risks of these companies, for special insurance tariffs, and for the increasingly stringent regulation on the Russian side.
The share of logistics in the final price of a product ranges from 2% to 16%, the Association of Automobile Freight Carriers and Forwarders “AvtoGruzEx” estimated. The heavier the goods, the higher the share, reaching a maximum for furniture and industrial equipment – for example, machine tools.
This has always been the case, but before 2022, the difference was measured in tens of percentages, and after the start of the war and the imposition of sanctions, prices have become several times different, a top manager of a large logistics company says: “In the end, of course, the Russian buyer overpays for all of this” (The Moscow Times).
