English Views: 5 Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2021-10-18 Origin: Site
Previously, it was difficult to find a container, the freight rate was soaring, and the supply chain interruption was the main problem for many foreign trade companies to export. However, since October, ocean freight, which has risen for 15 consecutive months, has declined for the first time, and Yiwu has also ushered in a wave of shipments.
Yiwu, Zhejiang: Trucks queue up, warehouses burst, export companies are busy delivering goods
Yiwu Port has a total storage area of 430,000 square meters, and 1/3 of the goods purchased from the Yiwu market are sent to the world from here. September and October each year is the peak season for Yiwu foreign trade orders. In Yiwu Port, trucks loaded with goods shuttle back and forth, creating a busy scene. A truck driver who was waiting for loading told reporters that he had been here to line up the night before. Ji truck driver: I have waited for more than ten hours from last night to now, because there are more cars here, I came here early or came late.
Although the workers kept loading the goods, the warehouse was still full, and there was a steady stream of new goods sent from the factory during the period. The warehouse manager of Kaiya International Freight Forwarding Company told reporters that since the beginning of this year, warehouse shipments have soared, and warehouses have been bursting every week. Zhao Jingyun, manager of the cross-border logistics department of a freight forwarding company in Yiwu, Zhejiang: It explodes every week, and it is still empty today. An express line like the U.S. used to load a dozen or so containers a week, but now I may have to load 25 containers a week, and I have to work 24 hours to complete it. The volume has also increased, and may have tripled.
Especially during the National Day, the freight rate was adjusted and a large amount of backlog of shipment demand was released. Not only that, but also customers who waited and watched began to actively place orders. In Yiwu International Trade City, Wei Shirong, who is in the pet supplies business, has just placed an order. Wei Shirong, an operator of Yiwu International Trade City, Zhejiang: Since last month, the price of our U.S. line has dropped significantly, from more than US$30,000 to more than US$20,000. The freight has dropped and the space has also been available. So now customers are starting to urge us to ship them in time, and now there are more orders than before, so they will no longer be worried about shipping costs.
Freight is rarely valued by buyers and sellers in the textile trade process, and this part of the cost is almost negligible when air freight is not involved. Before 2020, the price of shipping a container to the UK was US$2,500, but now the price is US$14,000, an increase of more than five times. Now any trader can hardly ignore this part of the cost. With such a skyrocketing freight rate, those engaged in textile foreign trade have also suffered from it. They sighed, "I have never seen such a high price in ten years in the industry! This business can't be done!" "I'm so worried, one The ocean freight for the trip is 200,000 yuan, which is too high, and the shipping company does not ship the goods. I have been saying that two days or two days later." Li Yu (pseudonym), the person in charge of Vinings Textile (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. The reporter said that the company mainly exports anti-epidemic materials and other textile products to Spain. Since 2020, the order situation has been good and the performance has been impressive.
Li Yu said that in the first quarter of this year, the company was not too busy and its gross profit margin was relatively good. However, since April, the company has become more and more busy. However, affected by the surge in ocean freight and the appreciation of RMB, the company's profits have fallen compared with the same period last year. half.
In this regard, the above-mentioned industry insiders said that textile export enterprises in the second quarter of this year faced three major difficulties: rising ocean freight rates, rising exchange rates and rising commodity prices.
"The sharp increase in ocean freight is due to the outbreak of foreign epidemics, especially the outbreak in India, which has greatly affected the global supply chain. The upward push of the supply chain will affect the imbalance of global shipping and cause the freight rates of domestic ocean routes to soar. But other countries Due to the epidemic, there may be many container stacks in ports that can be shipped quickly, so their ocean freight is relatively low." For example, a person in the industry said that the freight for a container has risen from US$5,000 to 10,000. US dollars, and the entire container may only be worth 30,000 US dollars, and freight accounts for more than a quarter. "This makes some products with relatively low profit margins less competitive than products from other countries, and there is no need for them. Export, because you lose money because of export."
At present, it is understood that many foreign trade companies in the early stage have received news from customers that they have stopped shipping due to high ocean freight, and their profits have been repeatedly squeezed!
Why did the soaring ocean freight suddenly turn down?
Wang Kai, a foreign trade logistics service company in Huizhou, said, “Recently, ocean logistics has experienced a sharp drop, mainly due to power cuts, which caused factories to fail to deliver goods. The whole market is out of stock, and container prices naturally cannot be speculated.”
In this regard, Zeng Yuanli put forward a different view. He said, "I did a small survey in Cixi and Yuyao a few days ago. Some companies that make conversion plugs and extension cords have a holiday before the National Day. The warehouses of the goods produced before can not be loaded, tens of millions or even Hundreds of millions of dollars in inventory, waiting to be shipped out." In addition, according to Zeng Yuanli, the decline of ocean freight depends on shipping routes. The western US route is falling, but the South Asia route continues to rise. The decline in freight rates on the West Coast line was due to the fact that many ships returned to China during the National Day, and their positions increased.
On September 26, at a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council on accelerating the construction of new infrastructure in the field of transportation, Sun Wenjian, spokesperson for the Ministry of Transport and head of the Policy Research Office, said that in response to rising sea freight, “one box is difficult. The Ministry of Transport actively cooperates with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to coordinate China’s container manufacturing enterprises to increase productivity and coordinate liner companies to speed up the return of empty containers. At present, the monthly production capacity of containers has increased from 200,000 TEUs in the past to 500,000 TEUs, the highest in history. "With the release of China's new container production capacity, empty container turnover has accelerated. According to major liner companies, the shortage of empty containers has been basically eased."
