Dry-bulk freight rose to a record for a third day on demand for panamaxes, the second-largest type of ship that can move iron ore, coal and other dry goods. The Baltic Dry Index, an overall measure of commodity- shipping costs on different routes and ship sizes, added 0.51 percent to 10,853 yesterday, according to the London-based Baltic Exchange. Record purchases of commodities by China, the world's fastest-growing major economy, have congested ports and caused freight rates to more than double in the past year. Chinese steelmakers and traders are increasing iron ore imports in anticipation that prices will rise next year. The country became a net coal importer for the first time in January, prompting other nations to seek coal supplies elsewhere.

''We believe dry bulk shipping demand and correspondingly dry bulk charter rates should increase further into the first quarter of 2008 ahead of a likely 25 percent to 35 percent increase in iron ore prices on April 1,'' Jefferies & Company Inc. Maritime Group Head Douglas Mavrinac said in an Oct. 22 report.

New iron ore production capacities scheduled to come on stream over the next eight months, a drop in China's iron ore inventories to the lowest since December 2006, and expectations that steel demand will remain strong in 2008, will likely boost hiring rates of vessels, Jefferies' Mavrinac and analysts Benjamin Nolan and Nick Norstrom said in the report.

Hiring a panamax, which is able to move 70,000 tons of cargo, costs $1,852 more, or 2.1 percent, at an all-time high of $90,248 on average as of yesterday, according to the Baltic Exchange. The charter rate for a capesize, the largest type of dry-bulk carrier, rose 0.3 percent to $184,216 yesterday.

Nippon Yusen K.K., Japan's largest shipping line, has chartered the 2001-built Angelina, which can move 74,540 tons of cargo, at $100,000 daily for intra-Asian voyage, Wallem Shipbroking HK Ltd. said in a report today.

China, producer of one-third of the world's steel, imported 15 percent more iron ore, the main steel-making material, in the first nine months from a year earlier, the Beijing-based customs office said on Oct. 12.

Growth in seaborne trade, including within China's coasts, will be about 200 million metric tons in 2008, surpassing the 175 million to 180 million tons of new ship capacity, John Kearsey, executive director of London-based Simpson, Spence & Young Ltd. said at a conference in Rome yesterday. The growth in trade will create a ''very tight supply-demand balance,'' he said.