General

With the continuous development of China, the role played by China in the global supply chain has also become more and more important. According to earlier this month, there has been a large-scale increase in freight rates when shipping containers departed from my country's ports. A 40-foot container is transported from a port in my country to the United States, and the freight can reach US$20,000.

Such high freight rates have increased by a full 500% compared with last year. In fact, not only the freight rates between China and the United States have increased on a large scale, but the freight rates between China and Europe have also increased to a certain extent. The freight rate of the container has also been able to reach 13,000 US dollars.

On the one hand, there is high freight, and on the other hand, there is a shortage of equipment. "I have been in the industry for decades, and I have never seen such a crazy situation. Now China is hard to find a box, but the United States is surrounded by containers." Lahtinen, the president of the Finnish container leasing company O.V. Lahtinen, was so amazed at the current strangeness of international shipping.

According to the announcement of the global shipping giant Maersk, the "shortage of containers" in global trade is now very serious. Especially for the international routes from China to North America, 40-foot-tall containers are extremely scarce. Maersk has made every effort to ensure that the supply of empty containers on this transportation line can keep up with the speed of freight. However, the shortage of containers will continue. Due to the lack of empty containers, many Chinese trading companies have postponed orders from North America, and even refused to accept North American orders.

China-U.S. freight rates rise by 500%

At present, the shipping cost of a container has exceeded 20,000 U.S. dollars. In some trades with lower profits, freight costs even exceed half of the total trade. It is worth mentioning that last year this fee was less than US$4,000, and it was US$11,000 at the end of July. Compared with the same period last year, international ocean freight has skyrocketed by 500%! The reason for this situation is that some relevant people said that the new crown epidemic has brought a huge impact on global trade, and the inefficiency caused by old port equipment and shortage of personnel; severe weather such as typhoons along the coast of China, wildfires and hurricanes in North America Also played a role in fueling the flames.

The United States itself is also an important reason for the substantial improvement in a short period of time. Due to factors such as the epidemic, the United States’ own economic situation is not optimistic. Under such circumstances, the United States chooses to issue large-scale US dollars to the outside world. Although this situation can alleviate its own unfavorable situation, it has also led to a further increase in inflation. .

At the same time, it is worth noting that the purchasing power of the North American market has risen sharply when the United States is actively distributing financial subsidies to the public. North American consumers buy large quantities of world goods, especially those from China. Under such circumstances, the demand for Chinese products Compared with the past, there has been a large-scale increase. According to previous statistics, the scale of my country’s exports to the United States has reached RMB 1.64 trillion in the first six months of this year.

At the same time, this move makes the China-North America route the most profitable route in the country. The shortage of supply in the shipping market has enabled most shipping companies to invest all their capacity on lucrative routes at 4-10 times the price.

Containers piled up in U.S. ports

At the same time, it is worth noting that, to a certain extent, the increase in freight rates is also due to the chaos of the current shipping order. Because it is relatively easy for China to ship containers abroad, it is facing serious obstacles to return this part of the container in time.

Analysts pointed out that due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, international trade once "severely shrank", but the current situation is rapidly expanding. The supply chain in some regions even has very rare extreme situations, which makes the operation of a large number of containers unsmooth, and the distribution situation in the world is seriously unbalanced. At present, the ports in the United States, Europe and other places have been surrounded by containers, while China is facing a situation where one container is hard to find, and at most one export container returns one after three exports.

According to industry insiders, in general, the round-trip of containers can be achieved within 60 days, but this has been extended to 100 days in August this year, which has caused a 150% increase in the rental cost of boxes.

Nowadays, although trade and other aspects in the United States have been basically normal, the labor market is not optimistic. This has also caused many goods to be unloaded in time after arriving in the United States. This has caused a large number of containers to accumulate in many ports in the United States. The box is hard to find".

Due to the large number of containers surrounding US ports, there has been a serious imbalance in US containers. According to statistics, the United States now has a 40% container imbalance gap, which means that if 10 containers arrive at US ports, 4 of them will remain stranded.

Under such circumstances, it is not surprising that the utilization rate of the container itself has further decreased, and the freight rate has increased. Judging from the current situation, the price of containers is still rising, which also means that the prices of subsequent related products may be affected by this situation, and it may be consumers from the United States that will eventually pay for this. .

International demand has increased, but supply has been dwindling, causing the current shortage of containers. The sharp increase in import demand in the North American and European markets has caused delays in global shipping. In addition, the United States and other countries have lost control of the epidemic and blocked ports. In the end, a large number of containers "surrounded" American ports, which severely hindered shipping and greatly affected the return time of containers. In some US and European ports, the dredging time can even last as long as two months, forcing some shipping companies to jump directly to the port. In addition, China, as a region with good epidemic control, has fully resumed work and production, export freight volume has continued to grow, the foreign trade surplus has been increasing, and the world's dependence on Chinese manufacturing has increased.

In view of the large number of stranded empty containers, which seriously affects the normal operation of US ports, the US has already taken measures. The United States has notified low-freight agricultural and trading companies, hoping that they will give priority to empty containers instead of transporting agricultural products. Analysts said that the shortage of containers and skyrocketing shipping costs may not be resolved until the world epidemic is fully controlled.