In the third quarter of this year, the sea freight rate from my country to the United States once exceeded US$20,000 per 40-foot container, which put considerable pressure on foreign trade companies. How is the situation now? Although shipping prices have dropped in the past few weeks, they are still relatively high compared to before the epidemic. From the perspective of long-term trends, it is still difficult to determine whether the recent adjustments are short-term fluctuations. The current epidemic situation in the United States is still serious, the operating efficiency of ports has not improved, and the fundamentals have not changed.
Sino-US shipping prices have fallen sharply
The third quarter is the traditional export peak season, and now it has entered In October, Jiangsu’s Taicang Port was still busy, with cargo ships loading and unloading cargo at the dock.
Guo Jian, Deputy Commissioner of Taicang Customs: In the first three quarters, the foreign trade throughput of Taicang Port exceeded 2.73 million TEUs, a year-on-year increase 54.8%. Recently, the volume of customs declarations, the volume of freight under supervision, and the number of transportation vehicles have all increased significantly.
In August and September this year, freight rates between China and the United States rose sharply. The freight rates from Asia to the United States once exceeded US$20,000 per 40-foot container. Many merchants Exports have been reduced or even suspended. Since the end of September, shipping rates between China and the United States have declined.
The Global-Baltic Container Freight Index (FBX) shows that the Asia to US-Western Freight Index has increased from mid-to-early September. Prices that exceeded $20,000 per 40-foot container dropped to $17,377 per 40-foot container. (According to the latest FBX weekly index on October 8, East Asia to the United States has dropped to $16,004. Compared with the high of $20,586/FEU on September 10, it has dropped by nearly $4,582, or 22.25%.)
An international logistics exchange group saw that on October 11, there was even a latest quotation showing that from Shenzhen/Yantian Port to Los Angeles, USA/ The freight rate at the Port of Long Beach dropped to US$8,300, which was directly halved compared to the price of the Baltic Freight Index (FBX). However, some people in the industry said that the price was significantly lower than the market price, which may be due to temporary adjustments to the released positions, or it may be due to scalpers selling their stocks to lower the price.
Yan Hai, chief analyst of Shenwan Hongyuan Shipping: The high point of container freight rates generally appears in late August or September. As the peak season ends, freight rates will fall. Due to the impact of power rationing and the shutdown of some companies during the National Day holiday, some freight forwarders were worried about insufficient freight demand and kept prices down.
After the freight price fell, merchants rushed to ship goods.
Wei Shirong, a merchant in Yiwu International Trade City, Zhejiang: When shipping costs were the highest, only 30% of orders from large customers survived, and other customers have been waiting and watching. Now that shipping costs have come down, all customers have recovered, and order volume is gradually rising, with a 50% increase from the lowest point to now.
Xu Guoying, deputy general manager of a greeting card company in Taicang, Jiangsu: October in previous years would be relatively easy. But this year I have been working overtime to catch up on orders.
Wang Guowen, director of the Logistics and Supply Chain Management Institute of China (Shenzhen) Comprehensive Development Research Institute, said that shipping prices have corrected recently, but they are still at a high level, which has a negative impact on global trade and consumption. Cost creates a lot of pressure. From the supply side, international shipping capacity has been increasing from last year to now, which will effectively alleviate the shortage of ship space.
However, Wang Guowen believes that it is difficult to conclude that power rationing is the cause of the drop in freight prices. The impact of power rationing on enterprises in the Pearl River Delta region is small. The Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta are areas where foreign trade is concentrated. For changes in foreign trade orders, we need to look at the export data in September and October.
Not all freight rates have fallen at present. Data from the Shanghai Shipping Exchange shows that as of October 8, China’s export container freight comprehensive index has increased by 1.6% compared with the previous period. The highest ones are 8.6% for Southeast Asia routes and 7.0% for East US routes. Among them, the West American route, the Mediterranean route and the South African route fell by 3.7%, 1.6% and 1.1% respectively.
“Recently, we have sent two freezers to Brazil, and the freight has been reduced by nearly 4,000 US dollars. The route from China to Europe has not dropped significantly, and we still ship according to normal needs.” A domestic company The person in charge of the foreign trade company said. Similarly, freight rates on the route from China to Africa remain relatively stable and have not declined.
“The global economy is undergoing an extremely difficult recovery.��We can only be relatively optimistic. The recurrence of epidemics in the future will have an impact on the economy. In a sustained recovery cycle, the irrational rise in international shipping prices will not last long. ” Wang Guowen said.
Recently, the official Weibo of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association issued a document stating that the recent quotations from many freight forwarders show that, Matson shipping prices have experienced a certain correction before the holidays, mainly affected by the recent strict supervision of the shipping market by relevant departments, power restrictions and the National Day holiday. Looking forward to the fourth quarter, on the one hand, the situation of congestion at international ports and tight shipping capacity has not yet been resolved On the other hand, with the Christmas holiday approaching, demand in Europe and the United States is still growing, and shipping prices will most likely remain at high levels. At present, global shipping supply and demand are seriously imbalanced, and the situation of being hard to find a container has not yet shown obvious signs of easing. Global trade Poor transportation has caused great disruption to the ordering and shipping rhythm of corporate customers. Enterprises have serious inventory backlogs, costs have risen sharply, and profitability has dropped significantly. Subsequently, as the overseas epidemic situation gradually improved, prevention and control measures were gradually relaxed. Previously, some Orders returning to China may also return to overseas, especially Southeast Asia.
Wang Guowen believes that the difficulty for small and medium-sized enterprises is that they have not signed long-term orders with shipping companies to lock in prices. What we are grabbing are timely orders. These orders do not account for a high proportion of shipping, but they are fatal to small and medium-sized enterprises. “For example, they only have one or two boxes of goods, but one box of goods costs more. Paying high freight costs, there is no way to solve this phenomenon in a short time. In the context of high freight rates, it is a difficult period for cargo owners. Domestic small and medium-sized enterprises need to make strategic adjustments when receiving orders. They cannot just take orders for the sake of taking orders, and try to choose high-quality products that can appropriately offset the proportion of freight costs in the value of the goods. Value-added products. ”</p
