"No! We haven't seen this special phenomenon for a long time. " Chen Yang, chief editor of Xinde maritime network, a professional shipping information consulting platform, told China first finance and economics. What he called "special phenomenon" is the dilemma of "one container is hard to find" since 2020. Now, at the end of the year, the situation is still fermenting.

Chen Yang said that the last time there was a big congestion in the world's container supply chain was in 2016, when Hanjin Shipping, the seventh largest shipping company in the world and the largest shipping company in South Korea, filed for bankruptcy protection, ending its container business that has been operating for 40 years. Chen Yang recalled that at that time, many ports were worried about their breach of contract and refused to let Hanjin's ships enter the port or detained Hanjin's shipping containers one after another, causing a global container congestion. "But this time, the nature is totally different."

Active trade has made the container throughput of Shanghai Port reach new highs this year. In October, the container throughput of Shanghai Port exceeded 4 million TEUs in a single month for the first time, setting a new monthly record with 4.2 million TEUs.

Benefited from the strong market demand, the freight of container ships is also rising. An employee of a freight forwarding company told China first finance and economics that in recent weeks, container freight rates of major shipping companies have been rising day by day and week by week, especially for the most popular European and American routes.

For example, he said, the freight rate of containers from Shanghai to Los Angeles has skyrocketed from about $1200 in March to $4000 in November, "and with Christmas approaching, the price will go up.".

Experts interviewed by the reporter of China first finance and economics all believe that the imbalance of trade structure in the world, coupled with the sudden epidemic situation in 2020, has made the container "empty container crisis" more and more serious. Chen Yang stressed to the first financial reporter that the current shortage of shipping containers is, to a large extent, a relative shortage, or structural shortage, rather than absolute shortage. "The current surge in freight rates is a structural problem, which can not be understood as a manifestation of global economic recovery."

China's port "container availability index" fell to the lowest level this year

At present, how serious is the congestion of shipping containers all over the world?

Florian Frese, a spokesman for container xchange, which provides a platform for shippers to trace the source of containers, said in an interview with China first finance and economics that at present, there is an extreme shortage of 40 foot containers, and the demand for such containers was not so tight before.

"Our monitoring data shows that almost three-quarters of 40 foot containers have been shipped, so it is difficult to find empty containers." In addition, compared with last year, 20 foot ordinary dry containers (20dc) and 40 foot ordinary dry containers (40dc) are also extremely scarce.

"At present, it's very difficult to buy or rent empty containers in China," Fraser said.

The container availability index (CAX) developed by container xchange can quantify the container availability of major ports in the world. According to the index, at present, there is a serious shortage of 40 foot high containers in Shanghai port, "in a deficit state", which is only 0.07, the lowest point recorded this year. In the same period last year, it was 0.69.

According to the definition of container xchange, if CAX is more than 0.5, it means that the container equipment of the port is surplus, and if CAX is less than 0.5, it means that the equipment is insufficient.

It is worth noting that this is not only a unique phenomenon of Shanghai port. The data of container xchange shows that the availability index of 40 foot ordinary dry container in Qingdao port is only 0.17; the availability index of 40 foot high container is 0.23; the availability index of 20 foot ordinary dry container is 0.14. The above data are not as good as the same period last year.

The scarcity of containers in domestic ports directly leads to the sharp rise of freight rates in major ports.

Taking Shanghai port as an example, as of November 27, Shanghai Shipping Exchange released the Shanghai export container composite freight index of 2048.27 points, a new high since the financial crisis. And the increase continues. In the same period, the composite freight rate index of China's export containers also climbed to 1198.72, up 4.6% from the previous period (November 20), and the growth rate continued.

The superposition effect of trade imbalance and epidemic situation

So, where are the containers that China desperately needs?

At present, most of the containers are concentrated in European and American ports, ferrezer said. For example, the port operation of California in the United States is paralyzed. Due to the delay, more containers are piled up, resulting in the "empty container crisis" of Chinese ports becoming more and more intense. She also pointed out that at present, the demand in Africa and South America is also very strong, but the size of some containers does not meet the requirements of cargo transportation. Therefore, it is not easy to find the right size of containers in the current situation of general lack of containers.

Chen Yang also believes that at present, the empty containers of shipping containers are mainly concentrated in the United States, Europe and Australia.

Chen Yang told China first finance and economics that the congestion of shipping containers has a lot to do with the current international trade imbalance. "Originally affected by the epidemic, at the beginning of this year, many analysts thought that this year's centralized transportation market might lose tens of billions of dollars," Chen Yang said. "But in fact, this did not happen. Since June, demand in Europe and the United States has increased sharply, which is unexpected. "

Taking the United States as an example, he said that since June, most states in the United States have started telecommuting, which has led to home consumption. Coupled with the U.S. government's successive economic stimulus policies, personal consumption expenditure has increased. "In contrast, Asian countries, represented by China, are relatively better at controlling the epidemic situation. As a result, global production relies more on China, Vietnam and other countries. As a result, containers start from China and Vietnam at full capacity, but few come back."

Why can't containers from China or Vietnam come back when they are assembled in European and American ports? Fraser believes that this is the delay effect of the blank sailings in the previous few months, "the interruption and delay of shipping caused by the epidemic seriously disrupted the normal rhythm of empty containers in international trade."

Chen Yang also believes that although the number of containers received by European and American ports has surged in the past few months, the epidemic has led to a decline in port operation efficiency. For example, most of the containers sent from Asia to the United States are concentrated in California, New York, New Jersey and other places. "These local governments have adopted relatively strict anti epidemic policies, so port workers and truck drivers have reduced their work, and container trailers are also insufficient. The speed from the port to the inland factories has also slowed down. "

At present, Europe and the United States are experiencing the second wave of epidemic, and the phenomenon of lack of workers and vehicles in ports is everywhere. In addition, the data show that, affected by various factors, the ship's punctuality rate has dropped from 85% ~ 90% in June to 56% in September, with an average delay of five days, and the punctuality rate continues to decline.

According to the latest report of sea intelligence, a shipping consulting company, the rate of global ship punctuality dropped to a historical low of 52.4% in October.

At present, the waiting time for ports on the west coast of the United States is 4-5 days. Although the epidemic situation in Australia and New Zealand is well controlled, the terminals are still congested due to various controls. For example, the waiting time for ports in Auckland is more than 10 days, and the port of felistoiser in the United Kingdom has announced to stop collecting empty containers.

Sri Lanka's port, which is crucial to South Asian shipping, has recently joined the global list of congested and paralyzed ports.

Colombo, Sri Lanka's capital, has been under a state of blockade over the past few weeks due to the epidemic, and the shortage of labor at the local container terminal has caused serious congestion since early October. At present, there is a backlog of 50000 TEU (TEU) cargoes at the port of Colombo, which leads to the confusion of transshipment cargoes in South Asia and affects the supply chain of neighboring India and Bangladesh.

"Under the background of strict anti epidemic measures, the gathering and transportation efficiency of foreign ports has decreased significantly, leading to the congestion of the whole logistics chain. This is not a problem in one or two links." Chen Yang said. At the same time, some ports such as Australia also appeared a short-term strike, which also affected the efficiency of port gathering and transportation in special period.

In addition, Chen Yang also pointed out that recently, new coronavirus was frequently detected in cold chain containers returning to China from Europe and the United States, which also exacerbated container congestion to a certain extent.

Container companies try to overcome the empty container crisis

In response, Fraser said that in the current epidemic situation, the key factor to maintain competitiveness is to increase transparency and flexibility. With the scarcity of equipment, people begin to look for alternatives. The popularity of SOC containers and the more effective advantages of online trading platform are all reflected.

The so-called SOC box is the owner's own box. An employee of a state-owned enterprise told China first finance and economics that the company had previously sent goods to Africa in the form of 20 SOC boxes. "However, due to the high freight rate of the shipping company, the company decided not to transport back the self purchased containers for the time being, but to temporarily use them as warehouses in the local area."

Chen Yang said that in fact, at present, major container transport companies are trying to overcome the problem of transport capacity shortage, "but the deployment of container ships on the sea is obviously not as simple as the deployment of taxis." He told China first finance and economics that the data provided by alphaliner showed that during the most serious epidemic period in the first half of the year, in order to reduce costs, the container shipping companies once suspended 11% of the global container shipping capacity. "It will take some time to activate these vessels, which are either cold idle or hot idle."

In addition, in order to catch up with the shipping schedule and transport the European and American empty containers back to Asia as soon as possible, according to the reporter of China first finance and economics, many shipping companies have tried their best not to take back the cargo. For example, at present, it is the peak season for us grain export. As it takes about two weeks for containers to get in and out of the inland, and the grain is heavy cargo, which affects the loading capacity of ships, the German shipping company Herbert has publicly announced that it will stop collecting grain. Most other companies choose to reject the full container in practice.

In this unprecedented container supply chain crisis, large container leasing companies see business opportunities and say that demand is still strong in the next few months. The largest container manufacturer also has more orders than ever.

In this regard, Chen Yang warned that investment containers should not be too optimistic, beware of the bubble. He is bearish on long-term value investment. "If the situation stabilizes next year, containers may face a surplus situation."

"We don't think that will ease in the next few months," Fraser said, "but as the benefits of vaccine development continue to spread, maybe the hard to find condition will improve next spring. International trade in goods will tend to be normalized. "

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