XXII Olympic Winter Games has started at 8 pm on Feb 7 (Fri) (1 AM on Feb 8 in Japan time) in Sochi in Russia. It will be the most in history with about 2,900 people comes from 87 different countries and regions. The opening ceremony is quite interesting. The host city exercises ingenuity of the opening ceremony. Thus, Olympic Games would be characterized by the open ceremony. Japan is 5 hours earlier in time zone than Sochi. If a game is held evening or night we will have to become the lack of sleep by seeing a live games. In the meantime, I cannot help supporting Japanese players. I fully understand how difficult players expected to win the medal could do so. It will especially require mental toughness under strong pressure of representing Japan in Olympics. On top of that it could be hard for players to make their condition best on the day of the game. It would need ability to make uncontrollable condition supportive to them besides mastering spirit, technique and physical strength. That may be like luck or momentum of luck. It is important to know it.
On the other hand, a Tokyo gubernatorial election took place on Feb. 9(Sun). Snow started to fall afternoon on Feb 8 and piled up 27 cm in Tokyo for the first time in 45 years on the day of the election, Feb 9. Voter turnout stood low at 46.14% comparing with the previous of 62.60% because of Sochi Olympic Games and heavy snow. As a result, Sochi Olympic Games and heavy snow would affect unaffiliated voters not to participate in voting not a little? The annual budget of Tokyo is 13 trillion yen, the number of staff is 160,000 and Tokyo GDP is 92.4 trillion yen which is ranked at 14th between Spain and Mexico and exceeds Korea in GDP. Therefore, a position of the Governor of Tokyo would be attractive indeed. The former Prime Minister Hosokawa run for the Tokyo election and the former popular Prime Minster Koizumi supported Hosokawa but they could not understand the will of Tokyo people. Mr. Masuzoe who left the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) won an overwhelming victory with 2.11 million voters out of 10 million voters in the election after backed by the ruling LDP. There is momentum in the stream and energy of the present times we live and things we are involved. It is important for us to understand which direction the vector of such stream and energy goes.
Japan’s current account surplus has continued to reduce and it was 3.3061 trillion yen in 2013 which is decreased by 31.5% compared with the previous year. The main factor of reduction has been caused by fuel import increase under the weak yen. The stoppage of nuclear power plants caused Japan to reduce current account surplus. If Japan could not buy government bond by herself it would cause increase of interest rates. Trust of Japan would be in danger which would put Japan in crisis. It cannot help restarting nuclear power plants in order for reconstruction of the Japan economy. However, we readily request Prime Minster Abe to correct the vector to the right direction by adopting natural energy.
Chinese New Year started on Jan. 31(Fri) and ended on Feb. 7 in China. It was expected to migrate by 5.8% raise to a total of 3.62 billion people in China this year. Container makers seem to close the factories by the end of Feb. North America was hit by a cold wave for the first time in 70 years in Jan. It affected very much to Midwestern and Southern states in USA where manufacturing industry gathers. As a result it will block the flow of containers back to Asia. So shipping lines need to lease containers in short in Asia. This is the case that the weather stimulates container demand. Some shippers seem to urge export before the raise of the freight rate in March. The number of new containers stock in China reduced considerably. However, leasing companies has been placing an order aggressively and speculatively in expectation of demand in spring onwards so that the new containers in factories would increase to about 500,000 teu by the end of Jan. New container price rises to $2300 per 20f in March.
Shipping lines who failed to secure the new containers max had to go to the depot containers as MLA in 20f for North of China and 40f HC for South of China. In the meantime, many ports in Asia have been suffering from surplus. However, most of depot containers are old. Therefore, shipping lines tend to lease younger ones (less than 5 years old). Therefore, leasing companies should endeavor to keep their fleet younger and to set up wider range of redelivery places in the world to remind them of the significance of MLA. Leasing companies have to take risk in supplying MLA so that MLA supply should be compensated such risk to some extent. I believe that MLA supply should be highly reconsidered by shipping lines when the time comes. Therefore, leasing companies should analyze the flow of containers in the region and make an effort to find the exit from the stagnant pool of containers in the most economical way like the sea current in the ocean to flow fluently in the world.
Lastly, total new dry container production in 2013 was 2.5 million teu, 4.0% down compared with 2012. It was the average as the average annual dry production is 2.5 million teu after 2007 (except 2009). Reefer containers production in 2013 was 206,000 teu which was 7.2% down from year ago. It is also the average as the annual production is 200,000 teu. New containers order this year will be the same as the last year or more because shipping lines and leasing companies will order more because the largest number of the new containers ships will be put in service in 2014. Especially order for reefer containers will be expect to increase considerably.