Chinese state-owned shipping firm COSCO has become the latest company to suspend its routes to Israel through the Red Sea due to the threat of Houthi attacks, it has been reported.
The Yemen-based Houthis have launched a series of anti-ship ballistic missiles towards Red Sea shipping lanes which they say is in response to Israel’s military offensive against Hamas.
Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), which is a part of COSCO Shipping Group, had already suspended sailing to the Red Sea since December, CNBC reported.
Attacks on ships in the Red Sea have pushed ocean freight rates higher as shippers reroute the long way around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope instead.
However, it noted that rerouting vessels traveling to the Netherlands from Taiwan, the self-governed island off the coast of China, adds around nine days to a journey which could have a “considerable” cumulative effect on global shipping capacity.
The U.S. also joined 10 other countries last week in warning that if the Iranian-backed group continued to attack shipping, it would “bear the consequences”—suggesting the threat of military action against targets in Yemen.
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