In recent months, our factories have received a large number of orders from the United States, but many factories have refused to accept orders from the United States. What is going on? Don’t Chinese factories want to make money?
In fact, this is also a helpless move. Everyone knows that the inflation in the United States remains high. The United States now needs our products to curb inflation. However, many factories have found after calculations that they cannot accept orders. After that, instead of making money, they will lose money. Among them are the rise in commodity prices and the tariffs imposed by the United States on Chinese goods. Another more important reason is the soaring shipping prices, which has caused many people to lose money. There is uncertainty about the order.
It is understood that since the second half of last year, world shipping prices have skyrocketed, and so far freight rates have increased seven times. In the past, the freight for shipping a 40-foot container to the United States was about 13,000 yuan, but now it has exceeded 130,000 yuan on some popular routes, and the price has increased tenfold. Such outrageous shipping prices have caused the freight to be more expensive than the goods. For this reason, some orderers would rather lose some deposits and reduce the order quantity. This makes factories with slim profits even more afraid to accept orders from the United States. .
Many people have questions, why are shipping prices soaring?
The reasons are very complicated. Generally speaking, they include the following aspects:
First, the epidemic has caused the shipping price to drop. Determinants of the surge. Due to poor response to the epidemic in many countries, factories cannot operate normally, causing a large number of orders to be transferred to us. However, the throughput of our ports is limited and cannot be increased indefinitely in a short period of time. According to statistics, in the first half of the year, our port throughput increased by 9.2% year-on-year, while during the same period, our total foreign trade value increased by 27.1% year-on-year. It can be seen that the growth rate of our foreign trade volume is far faster than the growth rate of port throughput. This shows that our ports are operating at overload and the shipping capacity has reached its limit. The raging epidemic in European and American countries, coupled with border control measures and labor shortages in various countries, has led to a backlog of cargo at their ports, resulting in a large number of stranded containers, exacerbating the shortage of containers and further driving up freight rates.
Second, shipping is an industry with very strong cyclical attributes. The price cycle of shipping often fluctuates with the economic cycle. Before every economic crisis, This is the stage when shipping prices soar. For example, 1997, 2000, and 2008 were all previous peaks in shipping prices. From an economic logic, the eve of the economic crisis is a period of severe overheating of the global economic bubble, which will cause the price of everything to rise, and shipping prices are naturally no exception.
Third, the Federal Reserve’s money printing is an important reason for this surge in shipping prices. The current world economy has entered a period of K-shaped tearing recovery. Some places are overheating while others are in recession. It can be described as a world of ice and fire. Half of the dollars currently in circulation were printed by the Federal Reserve in the past year or so. Such a huge amount of U.S. dollars has pushed up global commodity prices, worsened global inflation, and put world trade in an abnormal state. With the support of trillions of dollars, Americans are purchasing aggressively around the world. The balance of supply and demand is broken, resulting in tight shipping capacity and soaring freight prices.
At present, the rising shipping prices are causing great pain to the United States. The already high inflation, driven by high freight costs, is even more intense. To add fuel to the fire, American people will face higher commodity prices.
This shows how important a comprehensive manufacturing industry is. If the United States can produce those goods itself, it will not need to be so dependent on imports, and its inflation situation will also be improved. This also gives us inspiration on how we should take the next step, which is worth thinking about. </p
