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From January to May 2021, the cumulative container throughput of coastal ports in China was 100.62 million TEU, with a year-on-year high-speed growth of 15.8%; The cumulative container throughput of inland ports was 13.29 million TEU, with a rapid growth of 24.8%.
With the global economic recovery, China's container transport market has also been able to grow rapidly. However, the unbalanced economic recovery in various regions of the world and other factors also cause the container freight rate to continue to soar, which is expected to remain at a high level in the short term.
Rapid growth of container throughput
From the perspective of container throughput of China's coastal ports, the total container throughput of domestic coastal ports will increase year by year from 2016 to 2020, reaching 234.29 million TEU by 2020, with a year-on-year growth of 1.5%; From January to May in 2021, the cumulative throughput is 100.62 million TEU, with a rapid recovery growth of 15.8%.
From the perspective of container throughput of inland ports, the total throughput of inland containers in China will increase year by year from 2016 to 2019, and slightly decrease by 2020 due to the impact of the epidemic. The annual total throughput is 30.01 million TEU, a year-on-year decrease of 0.5%; From January to May in 2021, the cumulative throughput is 13.29 million TEU, with a recovery growth rate of 24.8%.
On the whole, with the gradual recovery of domestic and international economy, China's port container throughput shows a trend of rapid growth in 2021.
Analysis on the factors of container freight soaring
From the perspective of China's Maritime Silk Road Import and export container freight index, from January to October 2020, the overall change range of import container freight and export container freight is small; Since November 2020, the import and export container freight rates of China's Maritime Silk Road have shown a strong rebound trend, and will remain at a high level until May 2021. It reflects that China's import and export demand will recover rapidly in 2021, and the export market demand will grow rapidly.
The reason is mainly due to the imbalance of economic recovery in various regions of the world under the influence of global COVID-19. In addition, delays or delays in port congestion or closure, coupled with the reduction in capacity of shipping lines by shipping companies, have resulted in tighter container capacity and thus increased container pricing. In the future, with the further opening of global economies and the reconstruction of supply chain inventory, higher requirements will be put forward for container shipping capacity.
Skyrocketing freight rates promote container capacity growth
In order to alleviate the price pressure, the market began to increase a large number of container capacity. By the end of 2020, the number of coastal container ships (above 700 TEU) in China will increase to 308, with a capacity of 797000 DWT.
According to Xinde maritime information, in the first five months of 2021, the new shipbuilding orders of global container ships reached a record 229, with a total cargo capacity of 2.2 million TEU. However, the new capacity is expected to be fully put into use by 2023, and the container freight rate is expected to remain at a high level in a short period of time.
The above article is excerpted from the analysis of the current situation and development trend of China's container transport market in 2021 published by the forward looking economist. The data is from the Ministry of transport.
