Global container freight transport emergency crash

According to shipping consultancy Drewry Shipping Consultants Ltd, container shipping companies are being affected China's economic slowdown. Previously, shrinking demand in Europe and in emerging markets has made hit container shipping company.

Drewry Shipping Consultants estimated, via China and Hong Kong container port will grow by 4.9% this year, 5.8 percent lower than previously expected. This is equivalent to reducing the 1.85 million 20-foot standard containers.

China's economy has gradually slowed down for several years, but recently signs of a sharp slowdown in the economy is emerging. In July, China's manufacturing activity slowed to the lowest level for two years, and economists expect China's stock market crash will affect consumer and business confidence.

While Hong Kong's container traffic has declined for 12 consecutive months of year, some traffic is transferred to the mainland China.

With factories in China to reduce imports of iron ore and other goods, dry bulk transport being the biggest blow. However, container shipping companies have been hit, taking into account Hong Kong and mainland China accounted for 30 percent of global container traffic.

Despite the plethora of transport capacity and weak demand caused by pressure on the freight, but the strong performance of some large transport companies. Relatively strong US economy is helping to offset weak demand in emerging markets and Europe, the Japanese transport companies strong earnings last month, it has been the impact of weak yen.

Many analysts are not optimistic about the prospects for container shipping companies. The new large vessels can be installed in 20,000 TEUs, while the global transport energy demand is slowing.

Drewry said: "Now the boat too much, too little goods Unfortunately, the industry will be overshadowed for many years.."

Wall Street informative website previously mentioned, economic and financial issues research site Wolf Street Corp. founder Wolf Richter believes that real economic recovery situation in China and around the world must not look so bright, destined for major trading partners by the Chinese shipping cost is an evidence of the crash.

Richter believes that the causes of the above-mentioned shipping slump is twofold: First, the global market demand for Chinese manufactured products increased fatigue; the second is the destination port shipping oversupply, thus triggering a price war. Whatever the cause, freight and other indicators together reflect the real economy in China and the overall global situation is not good. But this grim situation was not reflected in the stock market, because the central bank's monetary easing global pushed up asset prices.

Richter mentioned in the article, since February this year, starting shipping rates from China almost every week in the fall, only a few weeks exceptions. Track Shanghai to the world's 15th largest export destination port Containerized Freight Index - Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) plummeted since February this year, plunged 7.4 percent last week lows.

As of July 24, SCFI week fell 44 points to 548.77 points, compared with during the financial crisis - 16 October 2009 the level had fallen by 45 percent to 1000 points, the cumulative decline since February this year, 51%.