Shipping “difficult to find one box” price is close to land transportation

The soaring sea freight has become the Achilles heel of foreign trade enterprises.
It is understood that the freight rate of China’s export container shipping market as a whole continues the sharp upward trend in the second half of last year, and the market price of main routes has increased by more than 80%.
China’s export container freight rate composite index (CCFI) shows that as of September 17, China’s export container freight rate index (CCFI) quoted 3156.86 points, an increase of 90.34% over the beginning of the year. Among them, the route from China to the western United States rose from 1270.74 points at the beginning of the year to 2319.37 points in mid September, an increase of 82%; The route from China to Europe rose from 2531.30 points at the beginning of the year to 5459.48 points in mid September, an increase of 82%. However, the route from China to Southeast Asia was basically the same as that at the beginning of the year.
The Research Report of Yihai blue, a shipping big data company, shows that China’s export container shipping market is in the current situation, mainly due to the epidemic situation and various joint effects.
At present, due to the impact of the epidemic, the waiting time for container transshipment is long, and the port transportation operation capacity is limited, resulting in the continuous rise of shipping prices. In addition, the export delivery date is concentrated in August and September. Therefore, the Shanghai export container freight index (SCFI), which reflects the spot market price, has reached a record high and increased for several consecutive weeks. It is understood that the rising sea price has been close to the land price of trains.
“Epidemic factors still directly affect both supply and demand, but they have a more direct and significant impact on the supply of effective transportation services. Before the current epidemic has not been effectively controlled worldwide, we are not confident that the global transportation ‘order’ can be restored quickly and that ships, ports and supply chains can operate efficiently. Even if there is transportation demand within the year A small decline, or a periodic adjustment of freight rate caused by the buyer’s foot voting due to the high freight level, will not be too long and too large, and the overall freight rate level of the market may remain high and strong. “Yihailan special analyst told Huaxia times.
A boat is hard to find
“At present, foreign factories have not fully resumed work and production, and domestic export trade continues to grow, which makes a large number of shipping containers loaded with Chinese goods transported to the world. However, when the cargo ships return, there is no suitable container products from abroad to import into China in a short time, resulting in a large number of containers stranded in foreign ports and a serious imbalance in the volume of import and export containers.” Ding Qiang, deputy general manager of Shenzhen anxinjie Logistics Co., Ltd.
Yihai blue research report shows that the problem of shortage is affected by both supply and demand.
In terms of supply, since last year, global ports, ships and land supply chains have been impacted by the epidemic on the whole, and the “order” of transportation organizations has been destroyed, resulting in the phenomenon that containers can not be “returned” in time and ships are often delayed and overstocked in ports, resulting in insufficient supply of effective transportation services.
In terms of demand, with the spread of the virus all over the world, the production capacity of all parts of the world has been impacted to varying degrees. For example, in Southeast Asia, where there are many industrial chains overlapping with China, its production and supply capacity has not recovered well under the impact of the epidemic. With the recovery of demand from the two major economies of the European Union and the United States, Its procurement demand began to shift to China, which took the lead in recovery and has supply capacity.
“As a result of these circumstances, China’s exports have entered a super boom cycle since the second half of last year, and there is a strong demand for export container transportation,” said yihailan special analyst.
The strong transportation demand in the shipping market is superimposed with the extension of the transportation cycle. At present, the operating hours of ships in the United States, the European Union and ASEAN in Hong Kong and berths continue to be higher than those in normal years. This means that the “backlog” of ships in the port has not improved in the short term, and a large amount of transport capacity has been consumed in Anchorage waiting and loading and unloading operations.
Take the port of Los Angeles, where the loading and unloading volume of foreign trade containers accounts for about 30% of all ports in the United States, as an example. Since the fourth quarter of last year, the number of ships waiting at the anchorage has been significantly higher than that in normal years. Recently, this congestion has not been significantly improved, and there is a considerable gap from the normal situation that most ships “come and call”. In addition, the loading and unloading operations that used to take only 2 to 3 days to complete have increased to 4 to 5 days since the fourth quarter of last year.
It is understood that the average speed of container ships on global international routes is at a high level in recent years. On the one hand, it can prove that the current market is highly prosperous and the supply of transportation services is tight; On the other hand, it also directly shows that the ships on the route have been “desperate”. By speeding up and giving full play to their spare capacity, the ability to increase the effective supply of the market in the short term has reached the limit.
At present, the freight rate of containers on popular routes between China and the United States has exceeded US $20000 per standard container, and even the freight rate has directly caught up with the air freight price, resulting in the “upside down” phenomenon that the freight is more expensive than the value of goods. This makes many foreign trade enterprises face the embarrassing situation of increasing orders but unable to deliver goods.
Corporate profits have also been seriously affected. Especially for some low value products, such as furniture, textiles and clothing, which account for a higher proportion of freight, the impact is greater.
Data show that recently, the year-on-year growth rate of export volume of furniture manufacturing industry, culture, education and sporting goods manufacturing industry decreased significantly compared with the previous period. At present, some enterprises have reported that customers require delayed delivery, and some orders have been cancelled due to freight delay.
The Research Report of CICC’s research department shows that in this case, exporters bear all losses, resulting in exporters being forced to adjust their strategies and will not organize production if they can’t book empty containers.
Favorable land transportation
The abnormal high operation of shipping prices and container prices has also attracted the attention of regulators. Recently, a number of global shipping giants have said that they will “freeze freight rates” and no longer rise.
“At present, the effectiveness of various stimulus policies at home and abroad in the early stage has been fully demonstrated, and the pulling effect on the economy has been weakened. Combined with the high base effect in the second half of last year, it can be considered that China’s export demand has entered a high decline period after last year’s recovery period after the epidemic and the vigorous period in the first half of this year. The activity of international container ships in the United States and the European Union is in a state of decline The situation and related values have fallen, indicating that the current trade demand intensity in these regions has shown a high level and slowed down, “said yihailan special analyst.
An additional impact is that shipping prices have increased by leaps and bounds, which has been good for China Europe trains to a certain extent. It is understood that the freight rate of China EU trains is generally stable, and the rising maritime price has been equivalent to the land price. From the trend, the shipping price will remain high in the short term. With the obvious recovery of global demand, it is expected that the tight supply and demand of transport capacity will be difficult to change in the short term.
In fact, many foreign trade enterprises and relevant supply chains have targeted the mode of transportation at the China Europe train.
In June this year, Maersk, the leader of container shipping, announced its entry into the China Europe train business. The head of Maersk train transportation project said that maritime transportation often encounters logistics bottlenecks. As an alternative solution, China Europe train service is a good choice, which can provide added value by improving the elasticity of the supply chain.
COSCO Haikong’s semi annual report also shows that in the first half of this year, the scale of the company’s China Europe railway train, the new western land and sea channel and the China Europe land and Sea Express Line increased rapidly, with a year-on-year increase of 54%, 79% and 20% respectively.
According to the data released by China Railway Group, since the beginning of this year, the operation of China Europe trains has maintained a strong growth trend. As of the end of August, a total of 10030 trains have been operated and 964000 TEUs of containers have been sent, with a year-on-year increase of 32% and 40% respectively. The comprehensive round-trip heavy container rate has reached 97.9%, breaking the annual operation of 10000 trains two months ahead of last year. More than 1000 trains have been operated in a single month for 16 consecutive months since May 2020, and more than 1300 trains have been operated in a single month for 4 consecutive months since May 2021.
On September 28, the first “Shanghai” China Europe train started from Minhang station, passed through Alashankou and Mara, Poland, and finally arrived in Hamburg, Germany.
“This year, in view of the strong demand for China EU train transportation, China Railway Group has continuously improved the coordination mechanism at home and abroad, made every effort to undertake the transfer of goods by sea and air, improve the port throughput, strengthen the transportation organization, improve the operation efficiency, and continue to play a strategic channel role in unblocking China EU trade.” the head of the freight Department of China Railway Group said.