Although the cost of fuel has soared, the international sea freight, which was originally high, has dropped significantly in the near future.
One of the reasons behind this is that the upgrading of epidemic prevention and control in some parts of China has led to the obstruction of the supply chain, which has changed and adjusted the market supply-demand relationship that was originally “hard to find in one box”. At the same time, changes in the international situation have also had an impact on the global consumer market.
sea freight high drop
The actual shipping price of container ships has dropped by an average of about 20% since the Spring Festival. The freight rate from China to the west of the United States has dropped from about 12000 US dollars to 8000 US dollars, more than 30%, and the decline in the European line is even greater. ” Zhou Shihao, CEO of China’s one-stop international logistics service platform “where to go”, told China first finance and economics that the main reason for the decline was that the originally tense situation of supply and demand of transportation capacity had changed, “there are still so many ships on the market, but the export volume is expected to decline by 30% ~ 40% recently”.
Previously, Zhou Shihao predicted that the shipping price would remain high and volatile in the next two years. The recent emergency obviously changed this trend and triggered the largest decline since the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020.
According to the news released by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange on April 2, the epidemic in some parts of China has spread recently, but it is generally controllable. China’s export market remained stable. This week, China’s export container transportation market was generally stable, and the freight rates of many ocean routes fell from a high level. On April 1, the comprehensive freight rate index of Shanghai export containers released by Shanghai Shipping Exchange was 434871 points, compared with 443407 points last week.
From January 28 to April 1, China’s export container freight index (CCFI) decreased from 356533 to 320483, a decrease of 10.11%, and Shanghai’s export container freight index (SCFI) decreased from 501036 to 434871, a decrease of 13.21%.
With the escalation of epidemic prevention and control, China’s supply chain is generally trapped in China’s logistics. The whole process from raw material procurement to post production shipment has slowed down.
As a long-term observer in the field of international shipping, Chen Yang, editor in chief of Xinde maritime network, a professional shipping information consulting platform, told first finance and economics that recently, pictures of Shanghai port being “captured” and congested by container ships circulated online. In reality, Shanghai port is not congested, but the number of container ships has decreased.
According to the data previously provided by vesselsvalue, from March 16 to March 30, the number of various types of ships waiting in the sea area near Shanghai did continue to rise, from 98 to 347. However, the substantial increase was mainly due to dry bulk cargo ships and oil tankers, while the number of container ships decreased continuously from 75 on March 20 to 39 on March 30, reducing by nearly half.
Chen Yang proposed that on the whole, Shanghai / Yangshan port is in a basically unblocked range. Although the port is not congested and operates normally as a connecting end, the goods exported from Shanghai port are still affected. “There are ships at sea and trucks are needed on the road. Any link must be unobstructed and the whole logistics chain can be complete”. The impact of the epidemic escalation on road transportation, especially land logistics end and warehouse, can not be ignored.
Zhou mu, the relevant person in charge of Anhui garment foreign trade manufacturing enterprise, told China first finance and economics that they had received a notice from international express companies, freight companies and warehouses since March 28, saying that relevant services would be suspended due to the impact of epidemic control. Even if some companies take away the goods in order to collect the goods, most of them are stuck on the way and have no news for a few days. At present, the suspended freight forwarding company has not made it clear when it will return to normal.
Zhou Shihao said that many freight forwarding companies rely on offline services. Once most employees cannot work in the office normally, they can only suspend the service. For freight forwarders with a high degree of digitization, they can still provide services, and the services of the whole industry have not stopped completely. Truck drivers need to hold a 48 hour nucleic acid negative certificate to prove that the traffic efficiency has indeed decreased, but they can still get on the road.
Affected by China’s logistics, as a one-stop international logistics service platform, the business volume of “yunqunar” in Shanghai port has been reduced by about 20% recently.
Shanghai International Port (Group) Co.Ltd(600018) also said that according to the requirements of epidemic control, the cross provincial transportation of land truck needs to provide the negative certificate of the driver’s nucleic acid test result, and the transportation volume is lower than before. To this end, Shanghai International Port (Group) Co.Ltd(600018) has taken active and effective measures to continuously optimize the collection and distribution system and effectively reduce congestion. In order to improve the logistics efficiency, Shanghai International Port (Group) Co.Ltd(600018) urgently developed and launched the “epidemic prevention pass” platform, relying on the big data platform to connect the nucleic acid detection data and the application code information, and combined with the business information of the electronic equipment handover form to generate the electronic epidemic prevention pass, so as to realize the “one code smooth travel” of truck transportation.
COSCO Group is also trying to maintain a high loading rate. COSCO’s recent report shared by insiders shows that the customs clearance rate in Shanghai has increased this week, the control measures in surrounding areas have been strengthened, and the trailer service has also been affected. It is expected that the export volume of Shanghai will decline in the next few weeks. By encouraging the goods source of the Yangtze River to transit through waterway and dynamically adjusting the arrangement of international transit containers, we can maintain the overall high loading rate. From this week (13 weeks) to the end of April (19 weeks), the overall cabin utilization rate is 95%, of which the loading rate this week is 96%.
container transfer Ningbo Zhoushan Port Company Limited(601018)
In 2021, the container throughput of Shanghai Port exceeded 47 million TEUs, ranking first in the world for 12 consecutive years.
In the promotion of the integration of the Yangtze River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta waters centered on Shanghai have also become the region with the largest ship density and the busiest traffic flow organization in the world. Xu Kai, director of the Institute of shipping information of Shanghai International Shipping Research Center, proposed that the number of ship positioning signals along the coast of the Yangtze River Delta has exceeded 15000 all year round. Coupled with the special natural environment and complex channel order of navigation in the waters of the Yangtze River Estuary, it has become the water area with the most dense maritime traffic flow in the world.
According to Zhou Shihao’s observation, affected by the epidemic prevention and control, some goods whose export is blocked are being transferred from Shanghai port to Ningbo Zhoushan port or Nanjing Port Co.Ltd(002040) .
For Zhou mu, 95% of the company’s goods are exported from Shanghai port, but recently some goods are also trying to be transferred to Ningbo Zhoushan Port Company Limited(601018) .
According to the data of Ningbo Zhoushan port, from April 1 to 3, the daily average container throughput of Ningbo Zhoushan port exceeded 100000 TEUs, exceeding the daily average level of last year and the first quarter of this year, of which 131000 TEUs were completed on April 2, the second highest in a single day this year.
However, Chen Yang said that the current situation is that it may not be easy for factories in Shanghai to ship to Ningbo Zhoushan port, while other parts of the Yangtze River Delta want to bypass, and the operation will not be so smooth in a short time.
“The transfer of some of our goods to Ningbo Zhoushan Port Company Limited(601018) is not so smooth. It is easy to understand that one avenue is affected, and everyone goes to squeeze the sheep intestines path next to it.” Zhou Mu said that many destinations could not be reached even if they started from Ningbo Zhoushan Port Company Limited(601018) .
In addition, recently, there have been confirmed cases of covid-19 pneumonia in Ningbo, so the investigation and epidemic prevention of container truck drivers are becoming more and more strict. According to the notice issued by Ningbo Meidong Container Terminal Co., Ltd. on April 3, truck drivers entering the port area need to complete a free nucleic acid test immediately before entering the port area.
In Zhou Mu’s view, it will take some time to return to the normal shipping state, even if the epidemic prevention is relaxed. Fortunately, for foreign trade manufacturing enterprises in the field of clothing, the peak period of production and sales is from June to September every year. At present, the factory is not busy. Although the overall order is good, it mainly benefits from the “order return” continued in October last year. Next, as the production of Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries gradually returns to normal, the division of labor in the whole region will also return to normal.
Zhou Shihao also pointed out that the recent business growth of “where to ship” in Southeast Asia is very obvious, and the business volume of Southeast Asian customers has increased a lot. But on the whole, the foreign trade industry will still face great challenges this year. Including the situation in Europe, the global market will inevitably be affected.
According to customs statistics, in the first two months of this year, China’s total import and export value was 6.2 trillion yuan, an increase of 13.3% over the same period last year (the same below). Among them, the export was 3.47 trillion yuan, an increase of 13.6%; Imports reached 2.73 trillion yuan, an increase of 12.9%; The trade surplus was 738.8 billion yuan, an increase of 16.3%. Exports of mechanical and electrical products and labor-intensive products increased.
Under the overall improvement of foreign trade, in addition to the current logistics obstruction, foreign trade manufacturing enterprises also face many challenges, such as high compliance service costs, raw material prices and exchange rate fluctuations.
