The April RatingDog China General Manufacturing PMI's 52.2 print, against a March 50.8 — the strongest factory reading since December 2020 — published Friday is now reading against the Drewry World Container Index Friday update: Shanghai-Rotterdam container rates rose 12 percent week-on-week to $3,840 per 40-foot container, the steepest single-week jump since December 2024. [1][2]

The paper's Friday account framed the PMI as a flip in export orders two weeks before the May 14 Trump-Xi summit. The Shanghai-Rotterdam rate creep is the second leg: the order book is filling up faster than the capacity to ship it. The Iran war's Hormuz disruption has not directly touched Asia-Europe routes — those go via the Cape of Good Hope or Suez — but bunker-fuel costs across all routes are now $620 per metric ton against $510 a month ago, a 22 percent increase that container lines are passing through. [3]

The Shanghai-Los Angeles rate held flat at $2,550 per 40-foot. The asymmetry — Europe up, U.S. flat — reads as a bilateral demand pattern: European inventory rebuilding ahead of summer is absorbing the export-orders flip, while the U.S. side is waiting on tariff clarity from the May 14 summit. [2] The PMI flip and the rate creep land on the same tape three days before OPEC+ meets to decide whether the war premium is structural or transient.

-- DAVID CHEN, Beijing