I had arranged the press conference with the major daily maritime newspaper companies of the Japan Maritime Daily, the Shipping Guide, the Daily Kaiji Press, The Daily Cargo on Nov.9 in the press club when Mr. Patrick Hicks, Secretary General of Container Owners Association (COA) arrived at Tokyo on Nov. 9 and set up the meeting with the major shipping lines (MOL, K Line), Nippon Express and Japan International Freight Forwarders Association (JIFFA) during his stay in Tokyo from Nov 9 to 12.
I visited them a couple times to request them to meet Mr. Hicks and I had finally confirmed the meeting with them by phone and by email. I believe this meeting was good for Mr. Hick to understand what Japan is at his first visit to Japan for over 20 years. I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to the press reporters and other people to share their busy time with Mr. Hicks.
I believe that people actually met Mr. Hicks got better understanding about COA which was far better than my explanation beforehand because he was more persuasive with many facts and the on-going subjects etc.
What is COA? It was established in 2004 in Surbiton, Southwest of London. It is a group of container owners in the world with the purpose of sharing the problems and to set the rule to solve it and to create the better future for the members.
The full members (151) are shipping lines (Maersk Line, CMA CGM, Mediterranean Shipping, China Shipping, Evergreen, Hanjin, Hyundai etc.) and leasing companies (GE SeaCo, Triton, Florens, CAI etc) and the associates (105) are container makers, parts and material makers and the partner members (2) total 161 companies. They have a meeting 2 times a year, Europe and Asia by turns.
their activities has been covering the container floor material and painting of the container for ecology issues to Cargo Incident Notification System (CINS) which is aimed at the data base of cargo damages by many incidents to be shared by members.
I am confident that Japan has contributed to the development of containerization in the world since containerization started in Japan in the late of 1960s. I regret no name of Japanese shipping lines in COA list.
Japanese shipping lines lost their interest in liner business due to no profit? Doing own way? Or being introverted? Anyway, I am not a only person who feel a critical situation with Japanese shipping lines. They have abundant experiences and lots of capable people. They must have an advantages supported by Japanese shippers developing their activities overseas and by Japanese Financial Institutes with rich fund. They should change this pinch of strong Yen to chance. They should simply shift their offices to overseas to cut the cost but they should willingly take a role of the leadership in the world? When I attended the 8th COA meeting in Shanghai in June there were over 100 participants of which people were 30~40 years old and 20% of them would be women. I still remember that it had been covering with their enthusiasm. In addition, I felt a sense of discomfort because of no Japanese there (Please refer to my report for July, 2011). It was a kind of shock to me to see the fact that the world is moving without Japan who is proud of the 3rd ranked GDP in the world. Japan looks like giving up their role even if people of the world expects. Japan should act as a giver as dispatching information by staying close with other countries in order not to put her mentally into isolation. It would be meaningful for Mr. Hicks to come to Tokyo to see them. He could probably sense a good response from them. Japanese shipping companies should gain lots of things by joining COA. I will attend the COA meeting on Nov. 28 in Hamburg and Intermodal 2011 Hamburg from Nov. 29 to Dec.2.
The World Economy would not grow without contribution of shipping lines of the world. Shipping lines should be entitled to seek their fair profit and secure it. I don’t understand they easily fall into the unfruitful freight rate competition. They should not forget their mission.
It is said that the number of the new production in stock in China would be less than 300,000 teu. The price would be $2,250 per 20f for the major leasing companies. This price would be attractive to shipping lines comparing with the price of $3,000 per 20f in the past but they could not buy containers under lowing the freight rate and uneasy of the world economy because of cutting unnecessary expenses.
Shipping lines will replace Long Term Containers leased in the high rate in the high container price with the low rated Long Term Containers in the low container price so that this would bring the leasing companies Long Term Containers but it would not be many. Therefore, leasing companies will have many expired Long Term Containers from shipping lines in the future.
Shipping lines would hold the surplus of in-fleet containers. They try to replace old containers with the new containers within the selling amount of their old containers in 2nd hand market and to get their fleet young. if so there will be many old containers in 2nd hand market but there seem to have been created the steady demand of 2nd containers not only for domestic but for SOC for export in the past 10 years.
In addition, in Japan old 20f would be more utilized as the tentative storage of the ash remaining the radioactive substance from the incineration facility in the water supply and drainage operations like Yokosuka city, Kawasaki city. ISO container would be standardized so that it is for easy handling to be stuck up in 3~4 layers in the limited area which requires much space. It is quite useful for storing the dangerous cargo in safe and in large amount. It would be movable as necessary comparing with the warehouses. In this points I am sure that more 2nd hand demand will be utilized for many purpose in domestic.
■Container Owners Association(COA)
http://www.containerownersassociation.org/
■Intermodal Europe, Messe Hamburg, Germany, 29 Nov – 1 Dec 2011.
http://www.intermodal-events.com/