The importance of a general rate increase (GRI), and the successful adoption thereof, is overstated according to global shipping consultancy Drewry.
“In reality GRIs have always been a rather crude device to raise rates (usually only temporarily) without much basis in real supply-demand economics,” said a Drewry spokesperson. “Their size and success rate has in the past more often depended on how well carriers pleaded poverty when rates sunk to non-compensatory levels.”
According to Drewry, it would be more useful to measure how long rates have been profitable than whether or not an individual GRI has been successful or not.
Drewry noted that it would not be a disaster if future GRIs had limited or even no success as there would be less need for them in a more profitable and stable environment.
