In response to the poor international container shipping, all localities and departments and relevant enterprises have taken active actions to increase transport capacity and stabilize the market to ensure smooth traffic

Container ships berth at Yangshan Port in Shanghai. People's Vision

"Blocking points" increase, a cabin is difficult to find, a box is difficult to find... Since the second half of last year, affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the operation of international container shipping has been poor, and the tight transport capacity and rising freight rates have become a common phenomenon in the world, which has brought a lot of pressure to some enterprises in China, especially foreign trade enterprises. In view of this situation, relevant departments such as transportation, commerce, industry and information technology, as well as shipping, ports, container production and other enterprises have taken action, pooled wisdom and joint efforts, conspired to help foreign trade enterprises solve their worries and difficulties. What work has been done by various departments and related enterprises in various localities? How effective are they so far? The reporter conducted an interview.

Tight capacity Freight rates rose

Poor shipping has caused a lot of pressure on foreign trade enterprises

"In early June, the mood was very tense, and the production line was almost forced to stop!" Zhejiang Juyi Group is a foreign trade enterprise producing footwear products, with an annual export volume of nearly 100 million US dollars, and its products are mainly sold to European and American countries. The main reason for the nervousness of chairman Pan Jianzhong is that the international shipping is not smooth, "there is no shortage of orders, but there is a backlog of 200 containers of shoes in the factory." First, the storage space is limited; second, the money cannot be returned, and the funds have become a problem. ”

Like most export enterprises in China, Juyi Group signed a FOB clause trade contract with foreign customers, that is, the overseas buyer is responsible for logistics and pays freight, which is theoretically not affected by freight rate fluctuations. "Before, we didn't have to worry about export logistics. But now the global shipping is not smooth, foreign customers are also difficult to solve, we have to find our own way. Pan Jianzhong told reporters that when "100,000 people are in a hurry", COSCO SHIPPING extended a helping hand to enterprises and arranged transportation capacity under the active coordination of transportation and commerce departments, "Since late June, 10 to 15 containers have been arranged to go to sea every week." Entering August, production basically returned to normal, capital turnover was smooth, and we dared to take orders again. ”

International shipping plays an irreplaceable and important role in serving economic and social development and unimpeded global trade. In China, about 95% of the volume of international trade cargo is completed by sea. However, since last year, the global spread of the epidemic has continued to put pressure on the international maritime market.

The most direct impact is poor turnover and tight capacity.

"Affected by the epidemic, the ports of some countries have been severely congested, the inland transport cycle has been blocked, the supply of crews has continued to be tight, and the time of ships in port, including anchorage waiting and dock operation time, has been greatly extended." Jia Dashan, vice president of the Water Transport Science Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport, said that in August and September this year, the on-time rate of global trunk routes has dropped from more than 70% under normal circumstances to less than 20%. According to statistics, in the past, the time for liners to travel from Shanghai to the western ports of the United States, the eastern ports of the United States, and the ports of northwest Europe was about 46 days, 76 days, and 82 days respectively, but since July this year, the time has been extended to 61 days, 87 days, and 99 days, respectively.

While the lengthened turnaround time of ships has led to tight capacity, container turnover has also been greatly affected, and a large number of empty containers have accumulated in some overseas ports and yards. For a period of time, "one cabin is difficult to find" and "one box is difficult to find" in the market, which has become a bottleneck restricting international trade.

The strong demand for foreign trade and the insufficient effective supply of transport capacity have led to an increase in freight rates.

"In the first half of last year, the demand for the maritime market declined and was at a low ebb. Since the second half of last year, with the recovery of global trade, the demand for maritime transport in various countries has recovered rapidly. Jia Dashan said that compared with the basic balance of supply and demand in 2019, there is a slight surplus state, because of the decline in turnover efficiency, the effective capacity supply has a loss of more than 15%, which has less impact on about 60% of the long-term transport agreement contracts in the market, and the lack of capacity is concentrated in the 40% spot market, resulting in a sharp increase in global shipping container freight rates.

According to Jia Dashan, from the Spring Festival to the end of March this year, the contradiction between supply and demand was relatively relaxed, and the freight rate of the international container market had declined for 8 consecutive weeks, but after April, affected by the Suez Canal congestion incident and the epidemic in some countries and regions, the capacity of major routes around the world continued to be tense, and the freight rates generally rose.

"The government department has promoted the strengthening of cooperation between port and shipping enterprises and import and export enterprises, advocating mutual benefit and win-win results, which has benefited us." What reassures Pan Jianzhong is that the price given by COSCO SHIPPING is significantly preferential compared with the average freight rate on the market.

Increase capacity and stabilize the market

Government departments and relevant enterprises have taken active actions to ensure the smooth flow of shipping

Behind the stabilization of the operation of foreign trade enterprises and the rapid growth of China's foreign trade is a series of measures taken by government departments and related enterprises.

-- Increasing the supply of transport capacity and resolving the "difficult to find in one cabin".

"Since the third quarter of last year, COSCO SHIPPING has put all its capacity into the market, and the company's capacity has reached a historical peak." The relevant person in charge of COSCO SHIPPING told reporters that while actively increasing the market charter, COSCO SHIPPING will accelerate and free up the capacity of ships on existing routes, increase the supply of space for european and American trunk lines, and organize transportation capacity to provide overtime ships and open additional special lines to provide more space.

The relevant person in charge of the Water Transport Bureau of the Ministry of Transport said that it has actively coordinated and guided liner companies to increase investment in the capacity of China's export routes with relevant departments. In the first three quarters, the number of cabins invested by major liner companies on China's major export routes increased by more than 27% compared with the same period in 2020, which was significantly higher than the 4.5% increase in global cabin sizes in the same period.

Port companies are also taking action. Since the second quarter of last year, Ningbo Zhoushan Port has taken measures such as priority berthing of ships, reduction and reduction of tugboat pilotage fees, and extension of the stack-free period for foreign trade liner companies to strive for foreign trade ships to berth and transfer containers.

-- Actively dispatching and producing empty containers to resolve "one box is difficult to find".

On the one hand, accelerate the return of empty containers abroad. COSCO SHIPPING has accelerated the overseas empty container pullback by adding ports and other ways to speed up the overseas empty container pullback, and in the first 10 months of this year, the cumulative withdrawal of empty containers from overseas exceeded 4.9 million TEUs, an increase of 23.6% year-on-year.

On the other hand, the production of new boxes is accelerated. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Transport actively coordinate China's container manufacturing enterprises to expand production and increase the monthly production capacity from 200,000 TEUs to the highest in history of 500,000 TEUs. With the release of China's new container production capacity, the turnover of empty containers has accelerated, and the shortage of empty containers has been basically alleviated. At present, the new container inventory of China's major container production enterprises has exceeded 700,000 TEUs, and the supply of new containers is sufficiently guaranteed.

-- Strengthen the docking of supply and demand and maintain market stability.

In China, many foreign trade enterprises, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, are not familiar with export transportation, and often entrust freight forwarding enterprises to handle procedures. Under the tight space situation, some freight forwarders have increased the price of sea freight rates, which has increased the pressure on small and medium-sized enterprises. In response to this problem, COSCO SHIPPING has used the Syncon Hub foreign trade e-commerce platform to broaden the channels for directly serving the majority of small and medium-sized cargo owners. At present, the platform has covered all foreign trade routes in China, realizing self-service price inquiry and online confirmation of bookings and other functions. COSCO SHIPPING also launched heart-warming measures such as increasing the number of small and medium-sized direct passenger overtime ships, establishing a priority release supervision mechanism for small and medium-sized customers, and opening a special e-commerce line for small and medium-sized customers, and the volume of small and medium-sized customers served in the first 10 months increased by 9.5% year-on-year.

Effective response and stable recovery

Successfully responding to changes in international shipping can not only turn dangers into disasters, but also turn crises into opportunities

In the first three quarters of this year, China's port cargo throughput and container throughput were 11.55 billion tons and 210 million TEUs respectively, an increase of 8.9% and 9.5% year-on-year, respectively, and an average increase of 5.9% and 4% in two years; the throughput of foreign trade cargo reached 3.54 billion tons, an increase of 5.2% year-on-year - data from the Ministry of Transport shows that China's shipping market is continuing to recover steadily.

During the interview, the reporter found that for Chinese enterprises, successfully responding to changes in international shipping can not only turn danger into disaster, but also turn crisis into opportunity.

The competitiveness of foreign trade enterprises is expected to be further enhanced.

"Some competitors have been affected by the epidemic, or they have been unable to start work or have difficulty exporting, and we have been able to carry out normal production and export, thus obtaining a large number of orders." Zhang Meili, vice president of Zhejiang Taizhou Zhengte Co., Ltd., told reporters that the company mainly produces and exports outdoor leisure furniture, and in the past two years, although the international shipping price has risen to raise the price of products, the european and American market demand is still strong, "We can even 'pick' customers." ”

China is at the forefront of the world in epidemic prevention and control and economic recovery, allowing foreign trade enterprises to harvest more market opportunities. In the first half of the year, China's import and export, export and import international market share was about 13.2%, 14.5%, 12%, respectively, an increase of 0.8, 0.9, 0.8 percentage points year-on-year, continuing to maintain the status of the largest country in goods trade.

The close cooperation between foreign trade enterprises and shipping enterprises is expected to be further deepened.

"Using the FOB method, sea freight logistics is handed over to overseas customers. Now, we are more inclined to sign CIF terms of trade contracts (export enterprises are responsible for transportation, pay freight), set up their own overseas warehouses, organize logistics. Zhang Meili said that under the test of the epidemic, China's backbone shipping enterprises have won more recognition for their stable and efficient performance.

In the interview, some industry insiders expressed concern about uncertainty in the maritime market. From the perspective of demand, as the economies of various countries gradually recover, international trade has picked up, and some institutions expect that the global container freight volume will increase by 6% to 9% this year. From the perspective of capacity supply, the vast majority of the world's existing container fleet of 24 million TEUs has been put into operation, and the annual capacity is expected to grow by less than 5%, which is not as fast as the demand growth rate. Against the backdrop of the global pandemic still spreading, the imbalance between supply and demand will continue for a long time.

To cope with the changes, enterprises need to deepen long-term cooperation. The relevant person in charge of the Water Transport Bureau of the Ministry of Transport said that foreign trade enterprises and shipping enterprises are encouraged to sign long-term transport agreements to ensure the supply of transport capacity and reduce the level of freight rates. COSCO SHIPPING also actively strengthens docking with leading enterprises in the industry and signs long-term transportation agreements to provide stable long-term transportation price and capacity support. In January this year, they signed a cooperation agreement with Midea Group to cooperate deeply in container transportation and "end-to-end" logistics supply chain. As of the beginning of November, the volume of cooperation across the two routes increased by more than 600% year-on-year.

In addition to increasing the proportion of long-term transport agreements, Jia Dashan suggested that China should take measures to deal with the challenges brought by the epidemic to the maritime industry in terms of construction and supervision: accelerate the construction of port infrastructure and enhance resilience to emergencies; accelerate the construction of automated terminals and smart logistics to improve the safety and reliability of the supply chain; strengthen relevant regulatory measures to promote the sustained and healthy development of the market.

Source: People's Daily