How to Use This Briefing Data in Practice
This page automatically collects shipping freight indices (CCFI, SCFI, BDI), key exchange rates (USD, EUR, JPY, CNY), and international oil prices (WTI, Brent) every day and lays them out on a single dashboard. Import/export practitioners can use these figures to quickly see how today's market compares with yesterday's — a useful baseline when drafting a quote or negotiating freight rates.
Shipping freight indices track the trend in container spot freight rates — a rising index is generally a signal that booking costs are likely to increase in the near term. Exchange rates directly affect export margins and import costs, so it's worth checking rate volatility around the time a contract is signed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How often is this data updated?
A. Exchange rates, oil prices, and shipping indices refresh several times a day; the AI market insight and newsletter refresh once, automatically, before dawn each day.
Q. What's the difference between SCFI and CCFI?
A. SCFI reflects spot freight rates for container cargo departing Shanghai specifically, while CCFI aggregates freight trends across all major Chinese ports. Viewing both together corrects for single-port bias and gives a clearer read on the broader market.
Q. Are the exchange rates here the same as Korea Customs' official rates?
A. No. The rates shown here come from real-time Yahoo Finance quotes. The official rate actually applied to import/export declarations is available separately on our Korea Customs exchange-rate lookup tool.