According to the latest data of FREIGHTOS briefing, the container freight rate on the route from China to the west coast of the United States has increased by 1 1%, reaching an all-time high of $3,058 /FEU, which is also greatly increased by 1 10% compared with the same period last year. China —— The freight on the east coast of the United States also rose slightly by 3% to $3,466 /FEU, up by 30% over the same period last year.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19 epidemic in the world, the global shipping industry has been greatly impacted, and even related businesses have been completely suspended. Many well-known shipping companies have suffered serious losses, leaving a big acceptance loophole. For the annual performance target, shipping demand has rebounded with the increase of vaccination rate, and shipping companies have compensatory price increases.
2. The international market continued to recover.
This time, the container has climbed at such a violent speed, which is not so much a decrease in the supply of transportation capacity, but rather a recovery in the market and an increase in import demand. Although the transportation capacity has reached the highest level before, the arrival of freight in the peak season earlier this year made the ships departing from China for the United States return home loaded, and the freight rate also rose.
From the main types of goods, mainly household goods, electronic products, fitness equipment, bicycles and so on. This shows that, especially in countries with high vaccination rate represented by the United States, the import volume of goods has continued to exceed expectations and has returned to the pre-epidemic level, and the year-on-year growth rate has even turned positive, indicating that the demand in relevant countries is relatively strong.
3. Indian mutant virus intensifies freight demand.
With the change of epidemic situation in India, the death rate of mutated virus has increased, which makes importing countries such as the United States hope to send products to warehouses and distribution centers before the national blockade again in autumn. The consumption caused by the new pneumonia epidemic has not been avoided, and may be aggravated.
Under the epidemic situation, the global demand for container shipping has declined, and container shipping companies have suspended a lot of capacity to reduce losses. However, since the beginning of this year, the recovery of shipping demand has exceeded expectations, and shipping is at a full load level, and even the loading rate is around 95%. The tight supply of transportation capacity has led to an increase in the price of centralized containers.
4. Factors of structural shortage of container equipment.
In addition to the demand-driven factors, the global shipping industry has not been completely lifted, and the structural shortage of container equipment caused by the occupation of a large number of containers is also one of the reasons for the current surge in container prices.
The surge in container prices has had an impact on domestic prices. Since the beginning of this year, the prices of some commodities have continued to rise sharply. Among them, the prices of iron ore, steel, copper and other varieties continued the upward trend last year, and some of them hit new highs in 10 years. Rising prices will naturally lead to rising prices.
Retailers generally hope to extend the free inventory time of ports, mainly because of the impact of the epidemic:
On the one hand, some non-essential retailers (such as furniture and toys). ) they have to close their offline stores, and some governments also require the closure of warehouses that store unnecessary goods. When the sales volume is not guaranteed and the storage space is limited, these retailers will not hesitate to pay the detention fee and only pick up the goods when there is demand.
On the other hand, it is difficult to move inbound containers out of the dock. One of the reasons is the scarcity of warehouses, and more importantly, the reduction of operators and shunting vehicles. Due to the frequency limitation of truck transportation, in order to ensure timely delivery, some shippers will reserve more trucks than needed in advance, even if they don't use them, they will not cancel them, which will aggravate the shortage of trucks and the goods can only be stranded at the dock.