As the epidemic eased, Shanghai began to gradually return to work and production, and the recently falling container freight rate is expected to rise strongly in late April.
Tim Huxley, founder of Mandarin shipping in Hong Kong, said recently that Shanghai port is the busiest container port in the world. In the past few weeks, the logistics supply chain has suffered setbacks due to the closed state of Shanghai; Although the port itself is still open, so there are ships, there is still a need for goods in and out. In addition, due to the longer queuing time of container ships in major ports such as Shanghai, many ships choose to skip Shanghai directly, which also brings problems.
According to the official data released by the Ministry of transport, since the week of April 11-17, the receiving and unloading transportation of ships berthing in Shanghai port has been relatively normal, the time of international container ships in port and berthing have improved compared with the first two months of this year, and the efficiency of comprehensive transportation services and loading and unloading operation have improved.
Last week, the average time of ocean going international container ships in Shanghai port was 2.02 days, down 1.9% from January to February 2022. Compared with the same period last year, it decreased by 43.9%. The average berthing time was 0.99 days, down 11.6% from January to February and up 2% from the same period last year.
Huxley believes that the current situation may take some time to fully return to normal, but based on China's rapid rebound at an alarming rate after the epidemic was controlled in 2020, it may help stabilize confidence. At that time, there was the strongest rebound in container freight rates and transportation demand in history.
Huxley said that although the future development is still unknown, it is obvious that there will be a large amount of pent up demand later, whether the factory resumes work or the products are exported again.
Industry insiders predict that the volume of container shipments will increase rapidly from May. Several international container shipping companies have announced that they will increase the "comprehensive rate surcharge" (GRI) from Asia to the United States from May 1, and impose a surcharge ranging from 1000-2000 US dollars per feu, which is equivalent to a 10-20% increase in freight rates.
Among them, EVA shipping charges us $1000 and US $2000 per feu; HMM increased by 1000 and 2000 dollars per feu; Ocean network shipping (one) increased by US $1000 per feu; Yangming shipping charges us $1000 and US $2000 per feu; Star shipping increased by $1000 per feu.
Affected by the closure of Shanghai, the latest Shanghai export container freight index (SCFI) fell for 13 consecutive weeks, but the decline has converged to 0.82%. Meanwhile, China's export container freight index (CCFI) rose 0.3% in the latest period, indicating that the demand for centralized transportation is still relatively high.