The withdrawal of Hanjin Shipping’s tonnage has not been enough to rectify the Asia-Mediterranean trade’s supply-demand imbalance and the new alliance schedules for next year do nothing to address this issue, according to shipping consultancy Drewry. Westbound volumes rose by 1.8% in the third quarter and the growth rate for the year to date is now registering 2.9%. Asian exports shipped to the West Mediterranean, including North Africa, grew by 2.8% between July and Septembe

Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho, the largest stakeholder of the group’s cash-strapped Hanjin Shipping, said Tuesday the recent shipping fiasco sparked by court receivership of the shipping line was “unavoidable.” “It was an unavoidable situation derived from the aggressive supply of government-backed foreign shipping lines and their low price strategies,” Cho said in a parliamentary audit for the state-run Korea Development Bank. KDB is the main creditor of Hanjin Shipping.

The fall of South Korea’s biggest container line Hanjin Shipping Co. is similar to the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and has materially impacted the shipping industry, Seaspan Corp. Chief Executive Officer Gerry Wang said. Seaspan, the Hong Kong-based container-ship leasing company that has three vessels chartered to the distressed line, is evaluating all options and examining systemic risks resulting from Hanjin’s bankruptcy filing, Wang said in an interview