Since last year, global container freight rates have continued to rise, with container market quotations on some routes soaring to more than ten times. Yiwu, Zhejiang, is an important center for my country’s foreign trade commodity exports. A large number of foreign merchants come here to purchase every year. Dramatic changes in container freight rates also have a huge impact on Yiwu’s commodity exports.
As for freight rates, expert analysis: It has now tended to ease, and the period of tightest supply and demand has passed, and it should be a gradual decline process.
Yiwu, Zhejiang: Container freight prices remain high, and corporate orders are stagnant
Container freight rates are rising, and the hardest hit are low value-added commodities. Due to small profit margins, these commodities cannot afford excessively high freight prices, so many overseas buyers have suspended orders and placed Some low-value product orders will be postponed or refused to be received.
A home improvement product manufacturer said that a batch of orders placed in April this year were originally planned to be delivered in June, but they are still stuck in the warehouse in November.
Not only that, due to the epidemic, it is inconvenient for many international merchants to travel, and the passenger flow in the trade city is also not as good as before, resulting in a significant decline in the order volume of many stores this year.
Zhang Ping, general manager of a decoration company in Yiwu, Zhejiang: Before the epidemic, our output value was more than 300 yuan a month Ten thousand yuan, now seven to eight hundred thousand yuan, the main reason is that customers can’t come in.
Yiwu, Zhejiang: Space is hard to find and inventory backlog is serious
The main reason why container freight prices remain high is that the supply of space exceeds demand. The high shipping costs have caused overseas buyers to reduce their enthusiasm for placing orders or even temporarily abandon orders.
Under this situation, many small commodity companies in Yiwu, Zhejiang have serious backlogs of inventory, and the company’s cash flow situation is deteriorating.
In an export commodity warehouse in Yiwu, Zhejiang, the warehouse of more than 6,000 square meters is almost full of goods, but with In sharp contrast, there are very few container trucks transporting here.
It is understood that this is the case almost every day during this period, so many goods have to be backlogged in the warehouse.
Su Xiaofeng is the person in charge of a freight forwarding company. He said that this warehouse can store 120 containers of goods, but recently only a few containers are loaded every day. Under normal circumstances, it only takes three days for goods to arrive from the warehouse, but now many goods have been stored in the warehouse for more than 10 days, and some have even been backlogged for a month or two.
Su Xiaofeng, general manager of a supply chain management company in Zhejiang: Our shipping space cannot be released, or there are no containers at the terminal. Our supply of goods There are plenty of them, but boxes cannot be returned to many countries with severe epidemics, resulting in very few boxes in the stockyards.
In another sanitary ware company, the person in charge Liu Junming showed reporters a full warehouse of goods. Because they could not book space, a large number of goods originally planned to be exported could only be temporarily piled in the product exhibition hall. inside.
According to statistics, their company’s product turnover rate has been extended from 42 days to 58 days, and the company’s cash flow is under pressure.
Some companies adjust their business strategies, experts: high container freight prices will gradually fall
Many foreign traders said that the current shortage of space is still very serious. Sometimes, in order to deliver goods in time, they have to entrust freight forwarders to book space at a higher price. Therefore, the actual container quotation on the market is generally higher than the official quotation.
In order to avoid the risks caused by shortage of containers and high freight prices, many companies have adjusted their response strategies, such as expanding the proportion of domestic sales, or changing their sales model from external exports to Pre-sale system, extended delivery time.
It is understood that in late September this year, the container market quotations fell slightly after nearly a year of continuous rise.
Expert analysis shows that there is still a large backlog of orders in the country and the loading rate of container ships is still at a high level, so it is unlikely that freight prices will fluctuate drastically in the short term.
However, on the other hand, the supply and demand margin of containers has eased, and in the future we need to be alert to the risk of freight price plunges caused by the decline in loading rates.
Yan Hai, Chief Analyst of Shenwan Hongyuan Securities Transportation Logistics: Now the entire supply and demand are still in a very tight process, but the tension The level of supply has become more and more tense in the past, and now it has tended to ease. The period when supply and demand were most in short supply has passed, and it should be followed by a gradual decline process. </p
