Water transport is the most important application field of containers in my country. With its advantages of wide coverage, small channel investment, strong transport capacity, small land occupation, and low cost, it is indispensable in modern cargo transport. It has become an important support for national economy, foreign trade and social development. With the continuous development of my country’s economy in recent years, the prosperous economic market has attracted a large amount of foreign capital, the foreign trade surplus has increased, and the scale of import and export of goods has expanded year by year, which has greatly promoted the development of my country’s container industry.
2012-2014In 2012-2014, world trade grew steadily, and my country’s container export volume continued to increase. Since 2015, my country’s container export volume has begun to decline. In 2016, my country’s container export volume was 1.99 million, a year-on-year decrease of 26.77%, which was the least export volume and the largest decline in recent years. Affected by the slowdown of the global economy, the number of my country’s container exports will decrease from 2018 to 2020. In 2021, the global economic and trade recovery will be strong. However, under the disturbance of the epidemic, global ports and inland transportation will maintain inefficient operations, and the return of empty containers around the world will not be smooth. In the market environment of growing demand for shipping and tight shipping capacity, “one container is hard to find” will become the main tone of the global container market in 2021, and freight rates will soar all the way as if riding a rocket.
Following the rapid growth of foreign trade in 2021, in 2022, due to the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the European energy crisis, the continued ravages of the new crown, high inflation in Europe and the United States, the Fed’s strong interest rate hikes, and the sharp depreciation of non-US currencies. The global economy is facing a recession, external demand has fallen off a cliff, and global ocean freight rates have continued to plummet. From January to September 2022, China’s container export volume was 2.81 million, a year-on-year decrease of 19.4%.
The “age of sky-high sea freight” is slowly coming to an end. The current “Black Friday” and the Christmas season are coming one after another, but the “order panic” is covering the world. There are endless news of production shutdowns, workers taking turns, and corporate holidays. The industry is facing the problem of “hard to find”. At present, the container warehouses all over the world have experienced the situation of intensive storage of empty containers.
According to the forecast, whether the situation of empty container congestion in Hong Kong can continue to improve depends on the speed of market recovery. At present, the congestion in the container shipping market is eased and turnover is accelerating, and the supply and demand pattern of container shipping is gradually becoming looser.It is expected that freight rates will continue to fall in the future . In a short period of time, it is difficult for the shipping market to catch up.
