The massive earthquake (named as the Higashi-Nihon-Mega Earthquake) hit the Northeast Sanriku offshore by measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale in Japan at 2:46 pm on March 11. I couldn’t think of the right words to describe the site where the earthquake hit but like the battle field which was repeatedly broadcasted on TV news. I cannot avoid feeling of recoiling at seeing such horrible scenery of Tsunami attaching the cities and small towns along the coast. Thousands of deaths and a missing people have been reported and increased as time passed. The chief problem is the lifeline such as water, electricity, roads to be secured. The disaster-stricken area in Northeast is 2~5 degree C in daytime and below zero at night. TV was broadcasting people engaged in rescue work in a snowing Tsunami-stricken area but their hard work could not be more than we could imagine, of course besides the victims.
All transportation stopped for 24 hours in Tokyo where it is over 500 km from the epicenter. It is reported that quite a lot of people gave up going home and stayed at the tentative evacuation sites that night. Traffic in Yokohama city where I live was completely paralyzed. I have never experienced 5-plus degree (4th strongest out of 10 degree to be classified by the Meteorological Agency) since I was born. There are no collapsed houses in Yokohama but there were many books fallen down from bookshelves, the broken dishes scattered on the floor in my house. The most unmanageable situation was the telephone line service was unavailable, especially for mobile phone had been interrupted the whole one day which gave us a feeling of unrest. We have still felt several strong aftershocks even today, March 14 (Mon) 3 days after. I realized that how big this Mega earthquake was and I felt how powerless human beings are in the face of Nature. To imagine such mega earthquake hits in Tokyo or Yokohama would make my hair stand on end. However, it doesn’t help if we only worry about it. We should support the rescue operation to make the disaster-stricken areas to be recovered as quickly as possible based on experience of many powerful earthquakes in the past as the major quake-prone country. I would like to appeal to the world for Japanese to fight as a body the crisis for the nation to attain quick recovery.
In the meantime, I got the emails from many friends overseas and Asian people doing business concerning about me and my family’s safety and warm encouraging words within one hour after the earthquake. I would like to feel their warm friendship and at the same time I could realize that we have been connected by the internet through the world. On the one hand, the foreign news media has been reporting that this earthquake would make Yen strong because Yen would be coming back to Japan to use for post-disaster reconstruction. On the other hand the stock of the listed Japanese companies in the overseas stock market would have been sold because this earthquake would limit to their economic activities. I realize that various information has been running around in the world instantly and has been getting the world economy moving. The movement for democratization occurred in Tunisia has overthrown Mubarak regime and it is now getting Gaddafi’s dictatorship in Libya come to an end. In the meantime, the instability of a political situation in Middle East would cause hike in the price of crude oil. It would be hindrance to recovery of the world economy which has been favorably recovering. Many companies might have to revise an earnings forecast downward. Shipping lines are not exceptional. The downward pressure has been exerted on the ocean freight rates by the drop in cargo movement after the Lunar New Year and the excess of vessels capacity.
Chinese government would implement the policy of revaluating RMB gradually in order to hold down inflation. Many main cities seem to have been suffering from labor shortage after Luna New Year. To raise their pay is necessary for securing the necessary manpower because the speed of price hike is exceeding the pay raise. It would result in the income differential which would cause one of uneasy factors to Chinese society.
Chinese container makers have recorded in the large black in 2010 after rapid recover in business. Demand for new production would continue till 2012. No.2 container maker in the world is said to have been applying for the new container factory in Shanghai.
Over 3 million TEU of new production per year used to be produced in the past before Lehman Shock. In the meantime, the retired number of containers from shipping lines and leasing firms would be annually around 1.3 million TEU. It would be less than 0.7 million TEU in 2010 which is almost half of 1.3 million TEU which have been affecting to big impact in the gap between supply and demand. New production price exceeds over $3,000 per 20F which has been pushing up 2nd hand 20f price accordingly. However, there are no 2nd hand containers from shipping lines and leasing firms which have caused 2nd hand container dealers serious shortage of containers. If we see the movement of container for the latest month of March many shipping lines have been gearing up container turnover to leave their new production untouched. Leasing firms have no role at all under close 100% of container utilization without return of any containers from shipping lines. As a result, container shortage in 2nd hand market would continue till shipping lines to replace with the new containers.
The astonishing news of changing container specification of the present containers has caught my attention. They are Hybrid Open Top Container and Sliding Door Container of which patents have been possessed by Future Box Corporation (FBC). Could you access to EFI home page which has been introducing the Innovative container technology invented by FBC.
http://www.ef-international.com
Could you click on “ the Innovative Products of FBC” on the vertical strip at the left side? If you could access to the FBC’s URL you could see the superiority and innovation of the patented products by FBC in the video of Hybrid Open Top and Sliding Door Container. It would be a herald of a good news that the patented products by FBC would replace the existing containers. If you see the Video label 4) Container (Security) you will see how the existing containers door would have problem. The video would not tell you how to simply steal cargo without leaving evidence but it would let you know the existing container not safe. It would let you know Hybrid Open Top Container patented by FBC would be easy and safe to operate by people at the job site and we are confident that these products would be longed for by people at the job site. From now on the innovated products like made by FBC would be more invented based on safety and easy operation for people at the job site. With such innovation of products we strongly request shipping lines and leasing firms to try to differentiate themselves from others. We would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to FBC to nominate EFI as their agent in Japan. At the same time we are proud of FBC and we are filled with a sense of mission to promote FBC’s products. We are expecting FBC to invent more innovative products and we would like to cheer FBC up for their success.