News
A recent report announced by China's Ministry of Transport predicts the container transportation market remains strong through the course of this year.
The report titled ''2021 Water Transportation Market Development and 2022 Market Outlook'' touches upon ''container transportation market'' as follows:
In 2021, the global container transportation market demand will continue to be strong. According to statistics from third-party institutions, the number of full-container ships in the world reached 5,515 with 24.97 million TEUs, with a year-on-year increase of 4.1% in capacity. However, due to repeated overseas epidemics, port congestion in some countries in the United States and Europe has intensified, resulting in obstruction of logistics supply chains and serious loss of shipping capacity. In the first quarter, China's export container transportation market has generally corrected. Since the second quarter, the container transportation market has become more active, and the freight rate has gradually increased. Entering the fourth quarter, the shortage of shipping space still exists, and the spot market freight rates of most routes remain high.
In 2021, the average value of China's export container freight index is 2,616 points, a year-on-year increase of 165.7%.
In 2022, the overall global container shipping demand will remain strong. The World Trade Organization (WTO) forecasts a 4.7% increase in global merchandise trade this year. A number of domestic and foreign institutions and shipping companies predict that the growth rate of international container shipping demand in 2022 will be 4-6%. As the new crown pneumonia epidemic is still spreading in many countries around the world, the congestion of major overseas ports has not shown obvious signs of improvement, which will have a relatively long-term impact on the stability and smoothness of the international maritime logistics supply chain, which will directly affect the effective supply of shipping capacity and thus affect freight rates. The spot market freight rate of liner companies is expected to remain high in the first half of the year, and the development of overseas epidemics and port congestion in the second half of the year will be the main factors determining the market trend.
