Since the epidemic last year, international shipping prices have skyrocketed. Before and after the National Day holiday this year, although overall shipping prices were still at an absolutely high level compared with before the epidemic, prices on some routes had experienced a correction.
The person in charge of a processing company in Zhejiang told reporters that the production of many foreign trade processing companies in Jiangsu and Zhejiang has been affected due to the recent power cuts. Moreover, relevant domestic departments have recently done a lot of work to alleviate the tight situation of transportation capacity, and shipping companies are also continuing to increase transportation capacity. He said with emotion: “During this period, congestion on some routes has eased, and turnover efficiency has also improved. Ordering containers is much easier than before.”
It is understood that Shanghai Port Foreign Trade Export heavy-box data has begun to decline since reaching its highest point since 2021 in June. Some analysts believe that trade is beginning to show signs of peaking. The interdependent relationship between the transportation industry and trade has led to a lot of speculation that “freight prices are about to drop” in the market recently.
According to Fu Xiaoyan, an overseas market analyst at Nanhua Futures, China is a major manufacturing country, and the growth rate of exports of industrial products is much greater than the growth rate of exports of primary products. Data in August 2021 show that among the export growth rates of industrial products, medicines, steel, primary plastics, vehicles, non-ferrous metals, leather, chemical products and related products have the highest growth rates, and the industries in which these products are located are all affected by the epidemic. Impact of power curtailment policy. From the perspective of export structure, the export of industrial products will fall significantly, which will affect the growth rate of China’s merchandise exports.
“Power restrictions and production cuts will lead to an expected decrease in foreign trade orders for the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, the two major centers of my country’s foreign trade. However, judging from the current customs data, orders have shrunk. The volume is not obvious yet.” Huang Zhen, senior researcher of major assets at New Century Futures Research Institute, added. In his view, in addition to the continued increase in shipping capacity that has eased shipping space, the drop in shipping prices this time is actually more or less related to the recent dumping of shipping space by “scalpers” who had previously hoarded space.
He introduced that there are many factors that affect shipping costs, among which the value of trade goods will also affect shipping costs. On the one hand, high value-added products require higher transportation requirements than low value-added products; on the other hand, high value-added goods also have high product value, so the export of such goods often costs more in insurance premiums and other expenses. cost, thereby increasing its transportation costs.
So, in summary, he believes that the power restriction policy affects the operating rate of domestic industrial enterprises, which in turn affects product output, and finally affects product exports. Depending on the added value of the affected products, the composition of shipping costs will be affected.
In addition, the new coronavirus epidemic caused by the recent spread of the Delta strain is still raging around the world, and the overall epidemic prevention and control situation is relatively severe. Li Rongkai, head of the macro and financial futures team at Luzheng Futures Research Institute, said that although the epidemic will benefit freight rates, high freight prices will also squeeze out demand, and a recent correction is normal. In his opinion, the shipping market structure will not change significantly in the short term.
Huang Zhen mentioned that after the domestic power shortage eases, especially from the end of this year to the Spring Festival next year, orders from foreign trade factories will generally appear. Growth momentum. In this case, shipping prices will still rebound. In addition, judging from the current changes in the epidemic situation in Europe and the United States, although the number of new confirmed cases has declined, the epidemic is still serious. This has caused the operating efficiency of the port to remain low, and many empty containers still occupy the shipping space. Therefore, it is difficult to store one container. The contradiction between supply and demand has not been effectively alleviated.
“The recent decline in shipping prices does not mean that shipping prices will not hit new highs.” Market participants said that many domestic small and medium-sized foreign trade companies are still facing the problem of rising shipping prices. The risk is particularly severe for labor-intensive export products with low added value. Under the influence of the epidemic, supply chain risk management has become a top priority for many companies, and tracking and managing freight rates is an important part of risk management during shipping price fluctuations. The launch of domestic shipping-related derivatives in the future will undoubtedly provide a good risk management “export” for the sustained and stable development of the domestic shipping industry, bulk commodities, export processing and other fields. </p
