The Cost of Instability – EMEA

ERA Group's report describes how global instability no longer stays in macroeconomics but arrives directly in the cost base: freight surcharges, packaging increases, supplier letters announcing blanket increases, longer lead times, tighter capacity and insurance renewals. The challenge is not simply that costs rise, but that they move faster, appear with less warning and are harder to validate.

Freight is usually where volatility shows up first. The report cites Drewry's World Container Index with Shanghai–Rotterdam rates up 25% to $3,579 per 40ft container in early June 2026 and Shanghai–Genoa up 20% to $5,089, and the IMF's finding that Suez Canal trade fell around 50% year-on-year in the first two months of 2024 while trade routed around the Cape of Good Hope surged an estimated 74%. ERA consultants describe a fuel surcharge moving from 8.9% in week nine to 25.4% by week 15, with surcharges now reviewed weekly rather than monthly.

Blank sailings create a form of artificial demand: the goods have not disappeared, but available vessel space tightens and the price rises. Broader market visibility can change the outcome — one example is a mini-tender across several suppliers that delivered a $2,500 saving on a single container.

In packaging, quotes may only be valid for a few days, and the right decision in a volatile market is not always to tender immediately: sometimes the first job is to protect continuity, understand the increase and stop temporary pressure becoming permanent margin. On risk and insurance, cyber is identified as the largest threat, and the assumptions behind business interruption cover and continuity plans may no longer match current lead times.

The content is ERA Group's own. JMF Europe provides a short summary here; the original English report remains the complete source.