On Jun 8 (Wed) I was bound for Tokyo to take Jouetsu Shinkansen (Bullet train) to Niigata I arrived at Yokohama station around at 6:50. There were many commuters who have already filled the platform of Tokaido Line for up trains to Tokyo. This crowdedness of commuters used to be like one of around 8 o’clock and at that time there was lot of space for commuter to read the newspaper without bothering others at 7 o’clock when I used to commute to Tokyo.
This phenomenon must be brought by the result of many private companies introducing one hour earlier of the summer time in cooperation with the government’s request of saving 15% on electricity. However, the people on the same train who seemed to be unaccustomed to come to the office one hour earlier seemed to be exhausted. There was no scene observed there like many people used to energetically read the newspapers, magazines to acquire the today’s topics. Many people were closing eyes and just wait for arriving at the station to get off. Some people were in the extension of sleep by holding the strap and lethargically leaning to it.
It says that the average commuting hours of the commuting population to the city of Tokyo (about 2.5 million people) is about one hour. The half of them takes more than one hour. If 10% of 1.25 million people would presumably come one hour earlier they have to be put in the hell of the rush hour because the public transport system could only support their voluntary control of the summer time with less available number of trains comparing with USA they apply to the summer time to all nation one time.
Carrying owls to Athens, Niigata port has been in full of containers. It is said that the monthly average of handling container was as follows:
Up to Feb’11 5 ~ 6,000 teu
March and April 7,000 teu respectively
May 8,000 teu
The container handling volume by Niigata port has been recorded the highest every month in the history. The effect of the mega earthquake has been seen here.
I joined the company excursion of our partner company, Kukdong/JJ MES held in Qingdao in China from June 4 to 6. All employees, 56 people of Kukdong/JJ MES joined including the overseas subsidiaries from China, Russia, USA, UAE China as well as Headquarter of Seoul. 25 people came from China with 5 offices such as Shenzhen, Qingdao, Tianjin, Urumuqi. Each office consists of 3~5 staff. Their staff is young in the age of 20s and the half of them is women who could speak English. There is no discrimination between man and woman if they are talented. Each office has at least one Korean staff for good communication among offices who understand their mission very well and get along with Chinese staff. Their ability would be highly respected by Chinese staff. One lady who joined Shanghai office half a year ago could fluently speak English who experienced a companion of the Korean pavilion in Chinese exhibition. The Korean lady staff of Qingdao who took care of attendees joined this April right after graduation of Chinese university. She could speak, English, Chinese and Korean. Her beautiful smile attracted all people. The man from Mongolia also joined Tianjin office this April. He could speak Japanese because he had one year experience in Japan as a trainee. He was missing Japan. He is expected to handle Mongolia business in the future. These young people looked for this job through the internet in China. There was no paper test but need to submit their resume in detail and a couple time of interview are required by the management. I always admire Kukdong/JJ MES for adopting right staff among many applicants and they are good at management. Their merit rating for employees is to add points while Japan reduces points. They encourage them as a member of family. Most of Korean companies adopt this way of management. I was only one Japanese attendee but many Chinese and Korean staff talked to me in broken Japanese how they like Japanese culture. I was happy to see such young people who were proud of speaking Japanese. I am confident that there are lots of rooms where Japanese companies could flourish in the world. They should follow the way of management by Korean companies. It would be the similar one which they used to do it long time ago. It is not late for them to come to China if they could get Chinese young people feel loyalty to the companies and they could encourage Japanese young people go abroad for job hunting.
New container stock in Chinese factories seems to be over one million teu as the end of May. There are two reasons: the first for shipping lines to have been able to manage their in-fleet without using concluded L/T lease in the factories. The second is most of leasing firms have speculatively been buying containers toward the summer demand. Some shipping lines try to keep buying new production under any circumstances in order to keep their fleet younger which is very important to make their shippers feel comfortable with younger fleet. They have been replacing the old fleet with the new fleet and selling old fleet in the market. Such old containers will be appearing toward the summer, especially in China. It is the best for the person in charge of shipping companies to control IN & OUT of total fleet and could save the cost of replacing the old with the new and at the same time they could sell the old in good price which is called one stone kills 3 birds.
The utilization of leasing firms has continuously kept high in 96~98% which means shipping companies have not returned any leasing containers including the expired L/Ts which they have leased or extended L/Ts at the comparatively cheap rates after Lehman shock. Meantime, leasing firms seem to have become weak so that they try to reduce their new containers in the factory by all means and try to hold off the new production order. As a result, Chinese container makers seem to promote more by lowering the rate. The new production price to leasing firms seems about $2,750 per 20f for July production.
Japan has been suffering from the rumor damage of the neighboring countries caused by excessive reaction of radiation on Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants. It has been caused by poor diplomacy of the government and the bureaucracy at the beginning. The cargo plane of All Nippon Airways could not unloaded at the airport of Dalian on March 16 and on March 22 the containership of MOL could not discharge containers in Xiamen in China due to high level of radiation. At last Japanese government has been issuing the certificate proving safety on the cargo from radiation on April 28. After that the neighboring countries loosening import restriction to Japan. This situation should be avoided if the government should have been open in the damaged situation of Fukushima Nuclear Power Plants. Japanese government should not be ashamed of the unexpected scale of earthquake and Tsunami. The government and the bureaucracy awfully look introverted. The private companies are also looking more for domestic market. They think that they could monopolize the profit in domestic market. From the world point of view Japan has been closed like the Galapagos Islands where the living things have independently evolved. We could speak and take an action anything freely in the public in Japan. However, once the organization is set up it might resist the external pressure after fermenting introverted energy. This is to defend the own interests which would not be tolerated by the world today. In the fellow members among Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and China they have common recognition such as a friend of a friend is a friend. Japanese could join such relationship to some extent. They will gladly accept Japanese who originally are gentle, broad‐minded, tolerance. Japanese should correctly grasp the position of Japan in the world now and as many Japanese as possible go abroad to find the job as well as traveling for better knowledge of other countries. Japan should aim at dispatching more various and useful information to the world. I feel that the world has been throbbing every time I go abroad. On the contrary I think Japan has been introverted and low‐spirited. The world is waiting for Japanese to go abroad more as you see encouragement of messages and helping hands which we have received from many countries of the world.