久久亚洲国产成人影院-久久亚洲国产的中文-久久亚洲国产高清-久久亚洲国产精品-亚洲图片偷拍自拍-亚洲图色视频

Global EditionASIA 中文雙語Fran?ais
Business
Home / Business / Focus

Container shortage weighs on China shippers

By WANG YING in Shanghai | China Daily | Updated: 2021-04-01 09:34
Share
Share - WeChat
A COSCO Shipping container ship arrives at Yangshan port in Shanghai on Feb 20. [Photo by Yao Feng/For China Daily]

Products targeted for exports piling up on wharves as raw material costs increase rapidly due to contagion constraints

Surging overseas orders for Chinese goods are creating rising pressure on ports and shipping companies, and related parties are working together to break the deadlock.

PowerRide, a British customer of Easy-try Cycles (Tianjin) Co Ltd, is facing fast-rising freight rates from China.

"Shipping costs of a 40-foot-container from Tianjin to the United Kingdom soared from $3,000 to $14,000 during the few weeks before Chinese New Year, and the company ended up paying $10,000 per unit for shipping the bikes they purchased," said Li Qing, president of Easy-try Cycles.

"The FOB(free on board) contract we signed did protect us from paying the escalating logistics costs, but we were equally hurt by the stockpiles of products and follow-up capital flow stress," Li said.

Due to rising logistics costs, clients are sometimes delaying shipments to wait for rate reductions. As a result, export-oriented companies like Easy-try Cycles are experiencing inventory stockpiles.

The Ministry of Commerce said China's 2020 exports grew 4 percent year-on-year to reach 17.93 trillion yuan ($2.73 trillion).

However, Chinese exporters, who were buoyed by skyrocketing orders in the second half after a long slump due to the pandemic, found themselves trapped amid a critical shortage of shipping containers.

The container shortage began in the second half, and became extremely acute at the beginning of 2021, said Zhou Dequan, director of the Shanghai International Shipping Institute's domestic shipping research office.

Although containers continued to move from Asia to Europe and North America, few were crossing the seas in the opposite direction due to COVID-19 restrictions as well as labor shortages at European and North American ports, warehouses and inland logistics facilities.

Currently, there is an imbalance in North America-only four containers were sent back for every 10 arriving, according to a CGTN report.

The asymmetrical ebb and flow of containers finally led to a reduction in containers needed for bulk goods transport, resulting in soaring freight costs for exporters, Zhou said.

Figures from the Shanghai International Shipping Institute showed that shipping rates began to rise in the second half. Shipping costs from China rose rapidly, and reached a 12-year high by the end of December.

The gap between demand and transport capacity resulted in a large amount of goods awaiting export being piled up on Chinese wharves.

In Easy-try Cycles' case, the company planned to ship 90,000 units of bikes delivered to one of their US clients-Walmart-by the end of May, but only around 2,000 were shipped as of mid-March, Li said.

Shipping companies are working hard to increase their capacity by placing new container orders and bringing empty containers on their return journeys to China, Zhou said.

A COSCO Shipping vessel recently brought 17,000 containers back to Shanghai from Europe, 5,000 of them being empty. COSCO Shipping tried its best to increase the amount of empty containers on its voyage back home, CCTV reported, citing Zhang Ning, deputy general manager with COSCO Shipping's container transport subsidiary.

"Throughout the second half of 2020, COSCO Shipping added 40 vessels, or up to 200,000 TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) in capacity," Ge Heyue, general manager of American trade with COSCO Shipping's container shipping unit, was quoted as saying by Shanghai Oriental Television.

Likewise, Shanghai International Port Group has quickly adapted itself to the new situation, and successfully transformed the traditional slow season after Chinese New Year into one of the busiest periods of the year at its terminals.

SIPG has been ranked as the world's busiest container port in terms of container throughput for 11 consecutive years. Despite the pandemic, in 2020 it handled 43.5 million TEUs of containers. Furthermore, the group bucked the trend by recording the best February by throughput at 3.4 million TEUs.

By setting aside space for stacking empty containers, the port of Shanghai is striving to empty sufficient bulk bins for goods exports. Currently, as many as 330,000 empty TEUs were available at the group's terminals.

In the meantime, favorable rates were offered to shipping enterprises at home and abroad to encourage the return of empty containers.

Additional shipping routes were added to the Yangtze River Delta region to meet the area's transport demand. The group also prepared sufficient backup plans for transportation peaks.

Thanks to collective efforts by shipping companies, ports and logistics operators, the container shortage has since eased a bit.

The number of empty containers returned to SIPG's terminals increased 18.9 percent in January compared to the previous month.

"Freight rates to the EU and US fell by about 10 percent after Spring Festival, but the rate remained at a high level," said Zhou Shihao, founder and CEO of YQNLink, a Shanghai-based global intelligent logistics platform.

In addition to the container shortage, export related enterprises are also suffering from rising raw material costs, which squeeze manufacturers' profits.

"Throughout 2020, our order volume grew more than four times, but the amount shipped only rose less than three times," Li said.

Although the fixes employed by Chinese shippers have so far helped alleviate the container shortage for international transport, industry experts agreed that the existing problems will be finally solved for good once COVID-19 is vanquished.

"The problem is expected to gradually ease in the first half, and we expect a clear improvement in the second half," said YQNLink's Zhou.

Li was a bit more cautious, declaring that the global trade balance will recover slowly and conditions won't return to normal until mid-2022.

An empty container distribution center will be established by SIPG, whose role is to flexibly deploy resources and relieve the container shortage pressure on neighboring ports.

"We are going to develop the port of Shanghai into a regional empty container transit hub in Northeast Asia," said Zhou Yong, a management assistant with SIPG.

Top
BACK TO THE TOP
English
Copyright 1995 - . All rights reserved. The content (including but not limited to text, photo, multimedia information, etc) published in this site belongs to China Daily Information Co (CDIC). Without written authorization from CDIC, such content shall not be republished or used in any form. Note: Browsers with 1024*768 or higher resolution are suggested for this site.
License for publishing multimedia online 0108263

Registration Number: 130349
FOLLOW US
CLOSE
 
主站蜘蛛池模板: 国产精品欧美一区二区在线看 | 特级a做爰全过程片 | 正在播放国产精品放孕妇 | 国产爱视频 | 国产永久免费视频m3u8 | 性欧美f | 日韩欧美一级a毛片欧美一级 | 中文字幕免费观看 | 成人午夜看片在线观看 | 一区二区高清在线 | 国产不卡毛片 | 国产成人免费午夜性视频 | 99精品福利 | 大胆gogo999亚洲肉体艺术 | 亚洲人成人毛片无遮挡 | 国产91丝袜在线播放九色 | 欧美日韩在线永久免费播放 | 成人免费在线播放视频 | a级毛片在线看日本 | 成人免费毛片一区二区三区 | 国产在线精品一区二区夜色 | 美美女高清毛片视频黄的一免费 | 欧美成人高清性色生活 | 成人做爰视频www片 成人做爰视频www视频 | 成人自拍视频网站 | 99久久九九 | 成人精品视频在线 | 亚洲国产一区二区三区四区五区 | 久久有这有精品在线观看 | 中国黄色网址大全 | 一色屋精品亚洲香蕉网站 | 国产成人18黄网站在线观看网站 | 久久精品国产只有精品6 | 欧美精品一区二区在线观看播放 | 国产精品久久久久久久久免费hd | 欧美一区二区日韩一区二区 | 国产做国产爱免费视频 | 九九国产在线观看 | 国产高清片 | 日本a级三级三级三级久久 日本a级特黄三级三级三级 | 狠狠88综合久久久久综合网 |