Container shipping companies were urged to raise Asia-U.S. freight rates by at least $600 per 40-foot container (FEU) with effect from Aug. 1, their organization TSA said on Wednesday.

Maersk and MSC have reacted to China's objections to the proposed P3 alliance by coming up with a new vessel sharing arrangement called 2M that they hope will be agreed by all regulatory authorities before the beginning of next year. Out has gone CMA CGM, in order to bring the agreement's market share down to more acceptable levels, and in has come a much simpler joint coordination committee to monitor the carriers' network on a daily basis.

China's regulators have blocked the P3 mega-alliance between Maersk, MSC and CMA CGM on the grounds that it infringes the country's competition laws between Asia and Europe, particularly with respect to the lines' combined market share of 46.7 percent. The law enforcers appear to believe that the cost reductions gained by the P3 carriers would either have been offset by this unacceptably high risk of market concentration, or would not have been passed back to shippers satisfactorily. Where to now?

High cube 40-foot containers are stealing a march on traditional 40-foot equipment and by the end of 2013 represented just short of 50 percent of the maritime container fleet, according to Drewry's recently published Container Census report.