Since the beginning of this year, China's foreign trade import and export have maintained growth, but the continuously high shipping prices have brought great pressure to foreign trade enterprises. Not long ago, they have just dropped from a historical high. However, with the recovery of production and consumption in Southeast Asia, they are heating up again.
Increased demand and soaring sea freight rates in Southeast Asia
Chen Yang, a freight forwarder in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, is booking shipping space in Southeast Asia. Recently, the sudden surge in freight rates on Southeast Asian routes gives him a headache. According to his understanding, now the shipping space in Southeast Asia is very hot and tight, and the freight rate has increased a lot. Recently, high containers have been running for three or four thousand dollars, and Thailand is about 3400 dollars.
Chen Yang, general manager of an international logistics Co., Ltd. in Ningbo, Zhejiang: it is mainly Vietnam and Thailand, including some ports in Indonesia and Malaysia. The freight rates of these ports have generally risen to more than 3000 US dollars. Before the epidemic, the freight rate may only be at the level of $200 to $300. During the epidemic, it reached more than $1000. The highest price is more than $2000 around the Spring Festival in 2021. The current price should be the highest since the epidemic.
According to the data of Ningbo shipping exchange, in November, the freight rate index of Thailand Vietnam route increased by 72.2% month on month. In the recent week, the freight rate index of Singapore Malaysia route increased by 9.8% month on month. Industry experts said that the resumption of work and production in Southeast Asia increased demand and the freight rate rose more than expected. While the freight rates in Southeast Asia soared, the freight rates in China and the United States, which had just subsided, rebounded slightly recently. On December 3, the Shanghai export container freight rate index reflecting the spot freight rate was 4727.06, up 125.09 from a week ago.
Yan Hai, chief analyst of Shenwan Hongyuan transportation: it may take about two weeks for the uncertainty of an Omicron variant virus and the final impact, whether it is overseas terminals or the final assessment of the potential blockade caused by the new epidemic.
Lack of containers to ease the "difficult to find one container" to "difficult to find one cabin"
Previously, the slow turnover and return of containers and the "difficulty in obtaining one container" were one of the reasons for the high sea freight rates. What changes have taken place and what new problems have emerged?
In the container terminal of Shenzhen Yantian port, almost every berth has container ships berthing, and the whole terminal is basically operating at full load. The reporter found that in the small procedures of Yantian port logistics, there was an occasional prompt of empty container shortage in October, which had disappeared in November.
Song Daning, chief of the first ship management section of Dapeng customs under Shenzhen Customs: 450000 TEUs of empty containers were imported in October. We also took a series of monitoring measures for empty container supervision to control the demand for empty containers.
According to the data of the National Bureau of statistics, China's metal container output increased by 1.7 times year-on-year in the first eight months of this year. The reporter learned from the market that although the problem of lack of containers has been solved temporarily, the problem of lack of space is still serious. Not only "LCL" and "collect containers" have become the norm, but even the space in the inner corners of containers, enterprises have made ideas one after another.
Yang Deshi, general manager of an international freight forwarding Co., Ltd. in Yiwu, Zhejiang Province: direct selling services include Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. The main products are daily necessities and handicrafts. Basically, we provide package delivery service for LCL LCL.
Xie Xiaolan, deputy general manager of an international freight forwarding Co., Ltd. in Guangzhou, Guangdong: because the car has a space as a whole, things can be put in the car. After the vehicle is loaded into the container, it still has some remaining space. Now enterprises are wondering whether they can put other small goods together with cars and export them in one box, so as to save shipping costs.
Charter a ship to sea to solve the urgent needs of the supply chain
The shipping market continues to have a high fever. Foreign trade enterprises rack their brains in order to ship goods. Small cargo owners pieced together containers, while large cargo owners and agents thought of the "charter" method to solve the supply chain problem.
When the reporter arrived at Daxie Xinye Wharf in Ningbo, the large crane was refitting the deck of the "Iceland" large cargo ship, and bound a batch of goods at the bottom of the cabin first. This is a multi-purpose ship. Compared with the traditional container ship, it needs to be modified before loading.
Xu Wei, manager of a shipping company in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, told reporters that in order to catch up with the festival market in western countries, they chose to "charter" to go to sea. The ship carries 1400 TEUs and is expected to reach the UK before New Year's day. Although the cost of "charter" is higher than that of the traditional shipping mode, in the current environment of "logistics supply chain" congestion, foreign trade enterprises need efficiency and shipping space to alleviate the capital return and storage pressure caused by the backlog of goods.
"Icelandic" is not an example. The reporter learned from customs in many places that many cargo owners and freight forwarders choose this way of "charter" to unblock the maritime "supply chain" to solve the urgent need of logistics.
Jiang Haidong, deputy director of dachanwan customs under Shenzhen Customs: since this year, charter trips to sea at dachanwan port have increased rapidly, with a total of 73 voyages, involving 58000 TEUs of containers. Export enterprises reflect that charter trips to sea have a very obvious effect on solving the shortage of international transport capacity.
