The off-season of foreign trade is not decent: a box is hard to find and the price of dry bulk shipping has soared
Author: Miao Qi
The strong demand in the foreign trade market and the increase in raw material prices quickly spread to both ends of the shipping link: the shipping prices of containers loaded with commodities remain high, and the relatively lagging dry bulk shipping prices, which are mainly bulk commodities, also ushered in this year. rise.
2021, which started with the "off-season", even ushered in a "good start" than in previous years-not only continued the peak foreign trade season that started in the second half of last year, but also the prices of raw materials on the manufacturing side soared, and international freight prices continued. Keep it high.
“The price of raw materials has risen in recent years.” As an export manufacturer of electric bicycles, Zeng Xiansheng, general manager of Suzhou Mengshi Intelligent Vehicle Technology Co., Ltd., told China Business News that after the start of the Spring Festival this year, the industry’s The double-digit increase in raw material prices not only squeezed profits, but also forced factories to stock up to 20% to 30% more inventory than before.
The strong demand in the foreign trade market and the increase in raw material prices quickly spread to both ends of the shipping link: the shipping prices of containers loaded with commodities remain high, and the relatively lagging dry bulk shipping prices, which are mainly bulk commodities, also ushered in this year. rise.
Behind the drop in container prices
From the second half of 2020 to January this year, container shipping prices have risen sharply.
According to the domestic one-stop international logistics service platform "Where to go" monitoring, from the second half of last year to January this year, the average price of container shipping on the US and European routes increased by more than 400%.
After the Spring Festival this year, the freight rates of some routes fell for the first time since the epidemic, and routes such as the US route and the European route fell by about 10% from the highest point.
"The decline in Europe and Southeast Asia lines is the most obvious, with the largest amplitude reaching about 30% compared to the previous highest point." Zhou Shihao, CEO of "Yunquna", told China Business News that one of the reasons for the decline was the gradual recovery of production capacity in Southeast Asia and other places. , So that the container turnover rate has increased.
However, after a short-term decline, container shipping prices remained high overall.
Zhou Shihao's prediction is that this year's international freight rates will continue to consolidate at a high level and fluctuate downward.
As a long-term observer in the field of international shipping, Chen Yang, editor-in-chief of Xinde Maritime.com, a professional shipping information consulting platform, had predicted that this year's shipping off-season might not be slow before the Spring Festival, but he still sighed with the recent rise.
"This year's off-season, the boom is not decent." Chen Yang told China Business News that the tight situation of container capacity after the Spring Festival has not been alleviated.
At present, global consumer goods demand is still strong, and China’s status as a “world factory” has been significantly strengthened under the global epidemic. The congestion caused by Chinese factories supplying global single-line output will still exist in the short term.
Continuing the trend that the import and export growth rate has turned from negative to positive since June last year, and continued to improve, my country’s foreign trade growth has remained significant in the first two months of this year.
According to customs statistics, in the first two months of this year, my country’s total import and export value was 5.44 trillion yuan, an increase of 32.2% over the same period last year (the same below).
Among them, exports were 3.06 trillion yuan, an increase of 50.1%; imports were 2.38 trillion yuan, an increase of 14.5%.
In terms of U.S. dollars, in the first two months, my country’s total import and export value was 834.49 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 41.2%.
Among them, exports were 468.87 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 60.6%; imports were 365.62 billion U.S. dollars, an increase of 22.2%; the trade surplus was 103.25 billion U.S. dollars, and the deficit was 7.21 billion U.S. dollars in the same period last year.
Chen Yang said that the common view in the industry is that by the third quarter of this year, "one box is hard to find" will not show any significant improvement.
A more pessimistic forecast is that the tension in the supply chain will not be significantly eased until the spring of 2022.
Prior to this, even if the freight rate dropped to a certain extent, it was still at a historical high in the past ten years.
Chen Yang said: "The current idle rate of containers is below 1%, and it is not intentionally idle, but to meet the environmental protection conventions, the special inspection of ships every 5 years, etc., before they have to be banned." In other words, on the market. There is no ship available.
At the end of last year, the Ministry of Commerce proposed "continue to promote the increase of capacity, support the acceleration of container return, improve operational efficiency, and support container manufacturers to expand production capacity". Why hasn't the trend changed?
According to Chen Yang's understanding, last year, the overall global container transportation volume dropped by 1.1% year-on-year. The reason why it appeared so hot was that the entire year's exports were concentrated in the second half of the year.
Therefore, there is no shortage of containers in absolute numbers, but a structural shortage.
"China did not go all out to produce new containers unconditionally," in order to prevent the emergence of surplus in the future.
Yu Zhanfu, a global partner of Roland Berger Management Consulting Company, also said before that, in this container price carnival, China's container manufacturers are relatively calm.
Although relevant companies are working overtime to produce, such as tightening working hours and increasing production capacity per unit of time, they are very cautious and did not use real money to expand production capacity.
Dry bulk shipping prices doubled
From the booming consumer end last year to the increase in demand for the bulk commodity raw material end this year, the latter’s feedback was relatively lagging, which also allowed the price of dry bulk shipping to rise significantly at the beginning of this year.
"This year we are extremely busy. The entire market has risen, which has driven shipping prices to rise. The owner's demand for ships is very large." General manager of Mavega Group China, a global ship brokerage company that mainly transports commodities such as iron ore, coal and grain Gao Xuefeng told CBN reporters that, normally, the first quarter of each year is the low point of dry bulk shipping, but this year’s situation is quite special. “In the past, the rent of a Panamax ship was between US$80 and US$12,000 a day. , It has risen to 20,000 US dollars."
As a freight index for bulk raw materials, the Baltic Sea Index (BDI) is calculated by weighting the spot freight rates of several major routes, which can reflect the current market conditions.
The BDI index shows that the average BDI in the first quarter of 2021 is 1579, compared with the year-on-year average of 1066 in 2020 and 592 in the first quarter of 2020.
At the same time, the indices for different ship types-the Baltic Capesize Index (BCI), the Baltic Panamax Bulk Index (BPI), and the Baltic Super Handysize Index (BSI) are all in The first quarter of this year ushered in a different range of increases, of which BSI increased the most.
Chen Yang said that the freight rate of small dry bulk ships has risen most obviously, at least doubling from a month ago.
This type of ship mainly transports grain, which is affected to a certain extent by the increase in China's imports of grain from countries such as the United States and Brazil.
According to official data from Ningbo Zhoushan Port Zhoushan Port Co., Ltd., on March 13, the company's grain cargo throughput this year exceeded 2 million tons 63 days earlier than last year, a year-on-year increase of 89.97%.
Customs statistics show that in the first two months of this year, import volumes and prices of iron ore, plastics, steel and copper materials have risen, while imports of crude oil and natural gas have increased and prices have fallen.
Among them, in the first two months, China imported 182 million tons of iron ore, an increase of 2.8%, and the average import price was 942.1 yuan per ton, an increase of 46.7%; the primary form of plastic was 5.611 million tons, an increase of 8%, and the average import price was per ton. Ton was 10,200 yuan, an increase of 9.1%; steel was 2.395 million tons, an increase of 17.4%, and the average import price was 7134.8 yuan per ton, an increase of 0.9%; unwrought copper and copper materials were 884,000 tons, an increase of 4.7%, and the average import price was 52,700 yuan per ton, an increase of 19%.
In addition, my country imported 89.568 million tons of crude oil in the first two months, an increase of 4.1%, and the average import price was 2470.5 yuan per ton, a decrease of 27.5%; natural gas was 20.796 million tons, an increase of 17.4%, and the average import price was 2292.2 yuan per ton, a decrease of 17.1. %.
In addition to the general increase in bulk commodity imports, Chen Yang believes that the busy shipping of dry bulk ships is also affected by the still-popularity of containers.
He explained that "a box is hard to find" makes it urgent to ship containers back to China.
In the past, containers shipped back to the country might be loaded with corn and other grains to be shipped back, but nowadays, empty containers are shipped back as soon as possible to ease the tension of domestic containers; at the same time, many dry bulk cargoes can be loaded. Ships in China have also begun to be mobilized and loaded into containers, occupying the capacity of dry bulk ships, which has changed the supply-demand relationship in this field.
In Gao Xuefeng’s view, this year’s international shipping market is expected to surpass that before the epidemic, “From January this year to now, the price and quantity of dry bulk transportation have far exceeded last year’s highest point. Market estimates for 2021 It will be better than 2019 before the epidemic."