CCTV Exposure: Difficult To Get A Container For Shipping

Due to the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the international logistics capacity has declined, resulting in a sharp rise in container ship freight, and the freight rate of the US west route has increased nearly three times compared with the beginning of the year. Under the background of tight transportation capacity, the industry frequently has the phenomenon of container drop.

Prices skyrocketed, and it became the norm to sell out

As of October 9, the market freight rates of Shanghai's exports to the western United States and the eastern United States were US $3848 and US $4622 per container respectively. The freight rates of the US west route have reached a new high since 2009, nearly three times higher than that of US $1361 per container in early March.

In addition to the soaring price of shipping and the difficulty of ordering containers, the shipping company's space is limited during the peak freight season, and the popular routes are also prone to the phenomenon of bursting and dumping containers.

Shipping companies have also raised rates because there are no containers for exporting goods, with rates to the United States up 60% in the past three months. In terms of African ports, the rate has more than doubled to almost 100%, while the freight rate in Europe has also soared by 50%. There is no route without price increase.

This year, due to the impact of the epidemic, most shipping companies had pessimistic expectations on the international shipping situation, so they reduced their transportation capacity. Under the background of the domestic epidemic situation being controlled, China's exports showed strong resilience. According to the data of the General Administration of customs, China's exports have been increasing for six consecutive months since April.

In the first three quarters, the cumulative growth rate was 1.8%, which exceeded the general market expectations. The total export value in September was 1661.97 billion yuan, an increase of 8.7% year-on-year. At present, the high freight rate and the difficulty in booking space are mainly due to the shipping company's capacity, which is difficult to meet the sudden growth of shipping demand.

Lin Qingwen, general manager of Shenzhen Container Terminal Co., Ltd

After the epidemic situation was under control, the resumption of work and production also led to the growth of foreign trade. There were two main reasons: first, many foreign trade orders were supplemented; second, cross-border e-commerce brought new types of goods. The throughput of Yantian international reached 1.42 million TEUs last month, which should be the current record of a single terminal in the world.

Zhang Kuo, general manager of Alibaba international station:

Because the epidemic situation has not been completely controlled in foreign countries, these countries lag behind China in the resumption of work and production. After a large number of Chinese goods exported to the local areas, due to the long time for the other party to unload the ship, the import and export speed is unbalanced and blocked, and the shipping market capacity is insufficient.

High air price is still a probability event

Even now that China has fully resumed work and production, and European and American countries have restarted economic activities, the epidemic has brought a heavy blow to the container shipping companies. It will take time to restore the normal transportation state in the past. In addition, the peak consumption season in the United States is coming. At present, it is still a probable event that the shipping prices will remain high in the next period of time.

According to the data, in the second quarter of this year, the net profits of COSCO Haikong, CMSC, COSCO Haineng, CNOOC Nanyou and COSCO Haifa increased by 53.79%, 520.93%, 5481.39%, 159.56% and 66.51%, respectively.   

Multi solutions to deal with maritime premium in peak season of e-commerce

Shipping is an important channel for cross-border e-commerce shipping. Now that the U.S. cargo preparation season has arrived, foreign users have begun to purchase electronic consumer goods, Thanksgiving, Christmas and other supplies in advance. What preparations have cross-border e-commerce enterprises made in the current unstable maritime logistics situation?

Zhang Kuo, general manager of Alibaba international station:

Now we have developed many new products with many shipping companies, including Yantian port, such as Sino US express. It turns out that due to a large number of aircraft out of service, we can now travel from China to the United States within 12 days by express ship. The 12 day time is also very convenient for many overseas small and medium-sized enterprises, and the price is only about one third of that of air transportation.

According to an enterprise official, considering the instability of maritime logistics in the peak season of this year, he tried to avoid depositing all the goods in a logistics company, and prepared the standby plan of sea, land and air at any time.