Singamas may raise container prices 11pc on higher steel cost, Japan quake

---

SINGAPORE, 18 Apr (Bloomberg): Singamas Container Holdings Ltd., the second-biggest maker of shipping boxes, may increase prices 11 per cent this year after steel costs rose and the Japan tsunami exacerbated a global shortage of cargo boxes. "Mountains of containers were washed away," Chief Executive Officer Teo Siong Seng said in an interview in Singapore on April 15. "Some of these containers will be replaced." The price of 20-foot cargo boxes may rise to $3,000 for June and July deliveries depending on steel and labor costs, compared with about $2,700 at the end of last year, he said. Steel prices in China, where Hong Kong-based Singamas operates factories, have risen about 7 per cent this year.