Container market Report October 2011

The Anniversary of the Founding of the People’s Republic of China, 7 consecutive long national holidays from Oct 1 to 7 ended. This period is seen the large number of people’s movement through China. According to Chinese Transportation department the number of the road passengers all over China was reported 520 million people in total. It means that 74.38 million people are moved for a day in China. It means that 40% of total 1.3 billion people moves back to home and travels during this week. The total sales of the national retailers and restaurants were recorded about RMB 69.62 billion. It increased by 17.5% comparing to the same period of the previous year. RMB 69.62 billion is equivalent to JY8.3544 trillion (RMB 1.00=JY12). It would be 9% of Japan’s yearly national budget, JY92.4116 trillion which was spent only for one week. Thus, we could not neglect such huge consumer power.

On the one hand China government has suffered from the bubble economy in the real estate and inflation problem. They have been tightening the money supply in order to control the cost of living. As a result, the minus interest was caused as rise in prices exceeded the bank interest rate. It might cause fear of unstableness in the sociaty which they will have to avoid. The policy Chinese government took by spending RMB 4 trillion (JY48 trillion) after Lehman shock was epoch-making and encouraging economy of other nations in the world.

On the other hand it has caused the bubble economy in the real estates and inflation. Chinese government had a successful story to have controlled 2 digits’ inflation happened in 1980s by raising the interest rate and controlling rise in prices. However, there are big difference in economy between the country in 1980s and GDP No.2 country at present. However, I would like to believe that Chinese government is almighty to do anything.

Greek could not revive by herself in EU because nobody could help buying their national bonds. EU could not let Greek go default. EU decided to nationalize Dexia of French-Belgium related bank. At the same time, EU is aiming at avoiding the economic crises by reinforcing the capital of European banks. I believe that they could find the solution as if it takes some time.

USA will spend $300 billion for stimulating economy. The key of success is subject to how it could increase the number of employees and could suppress lower than unemployment ratio of over 9%. Meantime, the number of employees in USA has continuously increased for 12 months comparing to the previous month. High birthrate of USA, 2.01% in 2009 would be promising to recover the personal consumption in the future.

Under the worldwide uncertainty in economy Japan could considerably contribute something better. It is to lift up all restriction thwarting the new business.
Japan should join in Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP) immediately. So Japan should open the domestic market to the world.
As a result it will be able to make Japan strong in own agriculture technology and products. It would contribute to development in the world economy to great extent. Japan should cut number of government employees to stop unnecessary expense and should give an example to the world which will encourage other nations as successful case. Japan should make inroads into foreign markets by taking an advantage of strong Yen and try to create large number of employees in the world and it would be true to activate the world economy.

It is said that around 500,000 teu of new containers has been kept in stock in China factories. Container price seems to be lower than $2400 per 20f. The reason is no order from shipping lines and leasing firms and in addition affected by rapidly dropping the steel price in China which has been caused by depressing the world economy and tight money policy in China.

Shipping lines have been suffering from down in freight rate. Are there any measures to secure the profit? I should say “Yes!” Shipping lines should be more aggressive in challenging in the shrinking market. No. largest shipping lines, Maersk Line will start the new service in Oct. Its service is to return money as penalty which is subject to how many days it delays once it commits the transit period from shipping date to delivery date. This is a great challenge. There are many ways for you to challenge regardless of software or hardware.

Lastly, government has been starting to remove the surface soil contaminated by nuclear leakage of Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. They have to keep and control them in the safety place. The other problem is that they have to keep and control sludge from the sewage plants and ashes from incinerators because of high caesium detected among them in Tohoku region (Northeast) such as Fukushima, Miyagi, Iwate Pref. and partial Kanto area. There seem to be about 22.7 million ton of debris left in Iwate, Miyagi, Fukushima Pre. There is no space where they keep, handle, move such debris.. I would like to use 2nd hand ISO containers for solving this problem. There are 3 types of container, 20f, 40f and 40f HQ. As you see the container terminal containers would be easy to handle and to be piled up at 3 or 4 layers. The max gross weight of 20f, 40f and 40f HQ is limited to 30,480kg. The payload of 20f, 40f, 40f HQ would be roughly 28 tons/20f, 27 tons/40f, 26 tons/40f HQ. 20f is more usable in terms of the weight but 40f and 40f HQ would be suitable for bulky stuff. The load capacity would be 36 cubic meter for 20f, 74 cubic meter for 40f. Open top container would be more suitable for handling debris because of no roof so that it is easy to load debris from the top. If you use container chasses it would be cheap as you can use the truck head detached. The modified 2nd hand ISO containers have been just starting to use as the container houses by 2 ~ 3 stacked in order to make use of the limited land. If government carry out deregulation more aggressively in various business fields the strong and reasonable 2nd hand ISO container would be more useful.