The cruiser 12m long and 8.5 ton in weight had been rhythmically and powerfully sailing against the wind and plowing through the wave of Tokyo Bay. The cruiser favorably sailed down to the south along the coast of the Miura Peninsula under full sail after moving out the moorings by the outboard engine. We enjoyed sailing to the full and felt refreshed very much. It was Saturday that the wave was calm and it happened to be a sunny day among the rainy season at the end of June. We returned off the lighthouse of Kannonzaki of Miura Peninsula early afternoon. It was 1st time for over 10 years. I remembered to compete sailing by a couple of 10m yachts for pleasure in the Lake Tahoe located at the state border between California and Nevada in USA. We won the 2nd in competition because I could not pull the sail properly. It is a fighting sport with the wind.
It is spectacular to see hundreds of Yachts sailing in Auckland harbor of New Zealand, Sydney harbor of Australia, San Francisco harbor of USA on the weekend. Not many people would enjoy yachts and cruisers in Japan even if Japan is a marine nation. We may not be rich enough? However, GDP per head of Japan is almost the same as USA and Australia but higher than New Zealand.
July 15 (Mon) is the national holiday called as “Marine Day”. It was established in 1995 and enforced in 1996 as “Memorial day of the Sea”. It was long wish of people who had been engaged in the marine business and had endeavored to set up for many years. It is the strong wish of the predecessors who want the nation to be interested in the sea. I remembered to have signed to materialize it. 73% of Japan trade volume has been shared by marine transportation. We usually forget it.
The sea is the working place and we could not afford to play by yacht or cruiser other than bathing in the sea in the summer? It is because national isolation in Edo period over 260 years. It has been printed in Japanese DNA that we had been prohibited to sail to the ocean. However, Japanese used to sail by the wooden boats to overseas before Edo period. The times require so. Anyway, Japanese should turn our eyes on the sea and overseas and I wish that such education should be recognized again in Japan.
July 21 is the election of the House of Councilors on July 4 a public notice. Liberal Democratic Party is said to be prevailing. Politics for populism should be stopped. I really wish politicians to deal in politics to foresee the prospective Japan of 10 years, 20 years or 100 years in view of priority issue to be solved quickly. They should not only be a spokesperson for the interest groups. The number of Japanese sailors has been reducing. It is not easy to recover the leadership in the field of technology and skill once we lost them. We might need such technology and skill in the future. Thus, we should succeed them as long as possible.
USA has revised the preliminary statistics on the number of employment of nonagricultural section upward joining 195,000 people. Unemployment ratio remained at 7.6% as same as the previous month. Rise on stock price and housing price, sale of the new cars have been proving steady recovery of individual consumption. The amount of order on May durable consumer goods as leading indicator would exceed than market predictive average for the past 2 months. There are many people expecting USA economy to improve in 2nd half of the year.
Japan Cabinet Office published that the preliminary statistics for May diffusion index (100=2010) is improved 0.8 point up against the previous month which has been successively improved for the past 6 months. It is said that Japan economy has been entering into economic recovery situation after the bottom in Nov. 2012.
20×18000 teu mega-container ships will be put into service from this year to the next year. Mega-ships have been inevitably accompanying larger alliance in order to fill up the space. In 2nd quarter of the next year the alliance called P3 network (Maersk, MSC, CMA/CGM) will emerge. There will be 3 gigantic alliances formed such as the G6 (the Grand + the New World), CKYH + Evergreen. The freight rate could be stable? On the other hand shipping lines who could not get on the bus should be retired? No! There will be chance on the feeder service to the ports where Mega-ship hardly call at. I believe there exists any niche business in any situation.
New container availability in China continuously exceeds over one million teu. The container price would decrease to $2050 per 20f. Leasing companies seem to place an order for certain small volume of new production reviewing their factory stock. They are promoting to sell old surplus containers in depots. On top of that they have been offering local shipping lines under One Way Free Use from surplus places to demand places to get more depot space.
EF International has entered into 4th business year this March. it is already one year since we moved to the new office (Higashi Kanagawa) in Yokohama. We have 5 agency business now. Each of them could grow big to support our company as one of the main pillars. We would like to make all companies who have appointed us as their agent in Japan happier. We would like to be ready to accept another agency business if it meet our interest and if we think it make us stronger. We believe all agency business help each other in multiplier effect.
In July we will start with 6 staff adding a new staff. Company quality is subject to people. It is not too much to say that an individual of staff will decide company future. To add capable staff will make our company more reliable. I am confident that adding staff will make our customers happy. At the same time I would like to look at our company based on 10 years, 20 years later. And what should we do now? I sincerely request you for your continuous support as we would like to share the business success with you.