EU pricing should be global, says GSF

The Global Shippers’ Forum (GSF) has said that new EU pricing rules for shippers should be ‘adopted globally to increase price transparency and prevent uncompetitive behaviour’.

14 shipping lines are to ‘change their pricing behaviour’ when the rules come into force on 7 December. But Alex Veitch, head of policy at GSF, said that the new legislation doesn’t ‘go far enough’.

“If price signalling isn’t a significant issue then there should be no problem adopting these rules globally, thereby eliminating any possibility of co-ordinated price increases. Pricing practices need to be completely revised worldwide to bring shipping in line with other modern business practices,” he said.

He also said that increases in the number of alliances was a concern because it had ‘led to greater market concentration, with the top five liner companies accounting for almost 60 per cent market share’.