This article from http://finance.sina.com.cn/roll/2020-11-17/doc-iiznezxs2376499.shtml

China is difficult to find a container, Europe and the United States nowhere to place

Foreign trade enterprises have to postpone the export of goods because they cannot arrange containers.

We are all queuing up. Now it is difficult to find a container. The freight rate has gone up to heaven, and there is no way to guarantee the timely delivery.

At large ports such as Qingdao, Lianyungang, Ningbo and Shanghai, a severe shortage of containers is causing ships to delay berthing operations and putting ports under pressure.

On the other side of the ocean, many Ports in Europe and the United States have seen a surge in shipping containers, leading to severe congestion.

With the gradual resumption of work in Europe and the United States, the port consolidation trade showed a gradual recovery trend. In addition, during the epidemic period, the ports around the world could not operate normally, which led to the backflow of containers scattered around the world, resulting in a difficult situation for China to find a container and no place for the European and American containers.

"This has been happening since May or June this year.

Because container ships mainly carry manufactured goods, they are an important link in the mutual circulation of the whole industrial chain.

At present, the global economic recovery is not balanced and the pace of recovery is also different. Therefore, China, which took the lead in the recovery, has a large number of industrial products being transported out of the country, but not many industrial products returning home. As a result, the flow of containers around the world is not smooth.

This is becoming more and more evident as the Chinese economy recovers further."

On the other side of the hard to find container, the freight rate is high.

At present, in order to seize the "prime time" of freight rates, many shipping companies refuse to receive goods in Europe and the United States, but instead rush back to Asia with empty containers at full speed.

The main reason for this situation is that the epidemic has affected the normal flow of global trade. It is expected that when the epidemic is brought under control, the shortage of one box in China will gradually disappear.

In the first 10 months of this year, China's imports and exports grew 1.1 percent year on year, better than the growth in global trade, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

With many countries' production capacity paralyzed, China, the first country to shake off the epidemic and get its production back on track, became for a short time the center of the world's factory floor.

Orders from Southeast Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and India have shifted to China, which has seen a surge in shipments.

Data show that since July, China's container export volume has grown rapidly, and the container throughput has further accelerated after October.

Data released by the China Ports Association showed that container traffic at coastal ports, a key monitoring area, accelerated further, with container throughput at eight major hub ports rising 11.1 percent year-on-year in October, the fastest growth this year.

However, if you look at the international market, it is not difficult to find that the global market is seriously uneven.

According to the Port Trucking Association (HTA), 10,000-15,000 containers are stranded at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach alone, resulting in "near total paralysis" of cargo traffic at the ports.

West Coast ports and Chicago are also struggling to cope with a surge in imports that has brought a flood of empty containers.

It is not just the US, but also Australia and the UK, where there are estimated to be more than 50,000 empty containers.

At present, the number of ships coming out of China is relatively large, but the number of ships coming out of Europe and the United States is relatively small. In this context, the shipping containers sent out by China ship by ship, but few of them come back, resulting in the massive accumulation of containers in Europe and the United States, while it is difficult to find a single container in China.

Trade beyond expectations

Containers go and never return, which brings a lot of trouble to all countries.

Due to the rise of the epidemic in Europe and the United States, ports are short of workers, vehicles and frames. The on-time rate of ships has dropped from 85-90% in June to 56% in September. The shipping schedule has been delayed for five days on average, and the on-time rate has continued to decline.

According to statistics, the waiting time of ports on the West coast of the United States has reached 4-5 days, Auckland of New Zealand has been waiting for more than 10 days, and Felestow of the United Kingdom has announced to stop empty containers due to overcrowding.

At the same time, the stow-free period that is common in foreign ports is much shorter than before.

The previous no-load period of two weeks or more no longer exists, and many ports simply collect their rents.

In China, some shipping companies have sharply raised rates and begun charging surcharges because of a shortage of containers at many ports.

On November 6, in shenzhen Port, where there was a severe shortage of cabinets, shipping companies such as Wanhai Shipping started to charge a shortage fee of $500 per box and $1,000 per large box for goods shipped to Southeast Asia, which was equivalent to doubling the shipping price.

Currently, U.S. shipments to Asia cost about $400 to $500 per large container (40TEU), while Asian shipments to the Western United States cost more than $3,800 per large container and to the Eastern United States more than $4,600.

Heperot also announced an increase of $5,190 /FEU for voyagesfrom East Asia (excluding Japan) to England, $4,710 /FEU for voyagesto the western Mediterranean, and $4,690 /FEU for voyagesto the northern continent.

The freight on the Southeast Asian route has also broken through 2000 dollars.

Not only that, a variety of congestion surcharge, peak season surcharge also began to levy.

Recently, due to the continuous widespread congestion at British ports, CSCL announced that it would impose congestion surcharge ranging from $50 to $175 /TEU on all containers exported to the UK.

Cma, a shipping company, also levies peak season surcharges on Asian shipments to the Mediterranean and North Africa.

However, this did not have a great impact on China's exports.

At present, China's import and export trade has accelerated growth for four consecutive months.

Data from the General Administration of Customs shows that China's import and export volume has shown a deep "V" trend since the beginning of the year. From March to May, due to the impact of the outbreak of the epidemic, international trade was weak and the import and export volume continued to grow negatively.

Since June, with the control of the epidemic and resumption of work and production, the import and export amount has improved significantly, increasing for four consecutive months for the first time in two years and showing an accelerating trend of growth.

And container throughput and import and export volume trend of high consistency