Maersk raise rates for peak season

Maersk Line, the world's largest container carrier by volume, has announced plans to implement freight rate increases to regain profits in a dismal shipping market.

The Danish shipping company intends to charge an extra $350 as a peak season surcharge for every container transported on the Asia-Europe route from June 15.

Analysts said it is common for shipping companies to charge additional fees in the second quarter every year, which is usually the busy season for the shipping industry, as retailers in the European market start placing orders for Christmas.

In the meantime, the Danish company also said this is a way to lift the depressed freight rates back to a "reasonable level" so as to regain profits.

"Rates have firmed up during 2012 but they are not at a satisfactory level yet that enable carriers to make sustainable returns thus we believe this is the right time to bring rates further up," said David Skov, head of Maersk Line South China.

"We are continuing to monitor our capacity thus sticking to our position of not providing more capacity than market growth," he added.

Nils Smedegaard Andersen, the chief executive officer of A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, said it's still unclear whether Maersk Line could break even in 2012.

"Whether we'll be at break-even for the year depends on whether we'll be able to compensate for the first-quarter loss," Andersen said in a recent Bloomberg interview.

Maersk Line reported losing $599 million during the first quarter of the year. In the same period last year, it had a profit of $424 million.

That result was even worse than what the Danish company reported for the same period in 2009, when the shipping industry was reeling from the global financial crisis.