In mid of Nov. I made a hurried tour of Singapore and Hong Kong. Several times of visit to these cities have made me more familiar to them. There is the railway called “Airport Express” in front of the gate after passing through the baggage claim in Hong Kong Airport. I usually taka a taxi to Hong Kong or Kowloon. However, this time I tried to use the railway. It was quite comfortable to ride in and felt like a Japanese Bullet Train. It took about half an hour to Kowloon station. I took a free bus to the hotel. On return home I took the same way of coming. My feeling was like a Hong Kong resident. It costs HK$180 for a round trip ticket while a taxi fare is around $300 for one way to the town. So a train ticket is about 1/3 of a taxi fare. You could enjoy beautiful scenery of many Hong Kong isles through the train window comparing with the small and dirty seat of a taxi. It is really recommendable. It is just 2 stops from the airport.
The year of 2013 will end in this month. I keenly feel these days that one day, one week, one month had passed by quickly especially whenever I recall. Many tough and fun things look like to happen in a flash. I think our sincere attitude of tackling the problems during such tough time would influence the rest of our life. We should not be neglectful of our work under any situation. The way of thinking like that would direct destine of our life to great extent. It would not be rewarded shortly. But your positive and indomitable attitude would lead your life to be successful in due course.
The number of people employed in US non-agricultural work for Nov increased 200,000 from the preceding month. Unemployment rate was 7.0%, down 0.3% from last month. It was the low level since Nov. 2008. The US economy in good health. German is leading Europe economy. The third Merkel Administration would set up the legal minimum wages of 8.5 Euro per hour to expand domestic demand. GDP of July to Sep in UK economy exceeded 3% of annual ratio conversion from the prior quarter. It must be the result of the UK government’s wise decision that they appointed a Canadian ex-president of Canadian Central Bank in July as the president of England Bank. The personnel affairs across the country made by the UK government would have brought UK an economic growth. The Abe Administration should be requested to guide each business sectors to raise wage hike. The commodity prices have already been raised. The same goods but less volume have been sold at the same price. It is substantially raised. The Tohoku Region stricken area by Earthquake and Tsunami has been in shortage of manpower for recovery. Demand before raise of consumption tax to 8% from next April has been pushing up Japan economy to certain extent. Meantime, government came up with 5.5 trillion Yen of economic policy to sustain the economic activities after 8% consumption tax will be carried out. However we come to pay 5.1 trillion Yen as consumption tax after next April onwards. We will need over 6% base up at least against 3% of tax increase and targeting of 2% inflation by government in order to strongly encourage our personal consumption. I am looking forward to the spring offensive by labor unions in 2014.
The annual report by Nippon Yusen Kaisha tells us on Nov. 28 that the order stock of the new ship building as of the end of Aug was 669 container ships with 4.9 million teu equal to 29% of the existing total ship teu. The volume of ships to be introduced this year is 267 ships with 1.4 million teu, 6.5% of growth rates. On the other hand increment of new ships next year will be 9.0% up at the maximum which would predict the largest ever. It will cause shipping lines unstable and uneasy in 2014. On top of that, the mega alliance of 3P (Maersk, CMA-CGM, MSC) will start in May 2014. They will occupy 38% of market share. Therefore, Global Shippers’ Forum (GSF) in UK, International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) in USA expressed concern about 3P. Meantime, it becomes clear that Hapag-Lloyd and CSAV have been conferring the merger. If they were merge they will be No. 4 largest shipping lines after Maersk, MSC, CMA-CGM. Growing big is current of the contemporary trend. It is inevitable for shipping lines to understand each other in the alliance and share the similar values. If so how about integrating the liner businesses of 3 Japanese shipping lines (NYK, MOL, K Line). Their liner scale (1.3 million teu ) would be close to CMA-CGM who is No. 3 in the world. Many active Japanese companies worldwide would feel easy and rely on them very much as shippers for their service in Japanese style.
There are new production containers of 400,000~500,000 teu in China factories. The present new production price is $2,000~2,100 per 20f. The rumor went round that major container makers are considering to close the factory for 1~2 months early next year due to increasing material cost, soaring personnel cost and difficulty in factory operation under decreasing order. As a result the container price may go up to a certain extent. However, it would be closed long including the period of Chinese New Year days. How many skilled workers they could secure after long holiday. Therefore, we may have to worry about quality of their containers.
Major leasing companies seem to maintain over 90% in container utilization ratio. So they have been shifting their fund to invest on reefer containers because of fall
in capital investment on dry containers as speculation. Containers returned by shipping lines seem to be concentrated on certain ports in Asia. Stock in China, Korea, Taiwan, South East Asia. Leasing companies should sell old containers as soon as possible to reduce the operation cost such as storage cost.
Somebody says that it is necessary that Japanese should be set up the national target. Japanese could work together in order to materialize it. Thus, Tokyo Olympic Games held in 2020 would be meaningful to Japanese. Thinking positively with hope for the future may get the whip hand over our life. It would apply to the nation. It is impossible that everyone has the same opinion because people have different born and bred. To describe in an extreme manner we should respect DNA of each people. It is important for us to endeavor in living together by respecting each other. There would be no boundary of race, nation and religion. If you have the feeling of “Omoiyari” and “Kikubari” in Japanese which is equivalent to careful consideration and attention to your partner respectively you could strengthen the bond between human and human over race, nation and religion. There is neither individual happiness nor prosperity of nation without peace. I am getting a bit in preachy manner but please allow me to say that because of close to the year end. I wish you all Happy New Year in 2014.