The consumption tax will be raised from 5% to 8% on April 1(Tue). Therefore, it produces the last minute surge in demand especially on the expensive products. According to Dentsu Inc. they predict that it will create 9.3 trillion Yen as the last minute demand. It will be 1.7 times compared to the last minute demand of 5% in 1997. Demand for expensive products of durable consumer goods like home electric appliances, cars, housing is very vigorous. One of reasons is that the consumption tax will rise to 10% again from Oct. 1, 2015. It is said that some couples get married before the tax hike. It would be a good chance to get an indecisive man marry. The aged (over 60 years old) have held over 60% of personal financial assets. The presence of the aged people in the department stores, the busy street of a town, the event venue, the famous scenic spots and so on are noticeable these days. It is certain that the aged would take a lead in the domestic consumption. We would like to wisely deal with the rise of consumption tax.
Japan economy has been steadily recovering. Nominal compensation for employees of the 2013 fourth-quarter has been increasing by 1.8% over the same period of the previous year. Capital investment is 9,439.3 billion Yen which increase by 4.0% over the last year. GDP is 0.3% up after seasonal adjustment, which increases by 1.0% when annualized. The ordinary profit from April 2013 to December for manufacturing industry in the listed companies increase by 68% to 14,352.8 billion Yen over the last year. On the other hand unemployment ratio reduced by 350,000 to 3.7% which decreased for consecutive 44 months. An unemployment allowance of 2013 becomes 570,000 scales which was 10% less than their prospects. As a result unemployment insurance could be saved about 100 billion Yen.
The car manufacturers’ reply about the wage demand of labor union are like
Nissan agreed to raise monthly 3500 Yen on average from April as per the labor union’s full request and Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi and so on will have a policy to accept full amount of the unions’ request of monthly 3500~4000 Yen. I would like to expect labor union’s fighting spirit of all industries. Construction has been delayed due to lack in workers under the last minute demand. As a result a wage rises because of shortage of workers. Employees over 65 years old was 6.36 million in 2013, which exceeded over 10% of the whole employees. I expect Abenomics should make better use of the energetic aged and make Japan comfortable in living after solving labor shortage.
Utilization of the aged will be the key of making Japan attractive. They will be grouped as intelligence agents in various aspects of techniques from upstream to downstream and then how about getting them play in the developing countries? They will help the developing countries growing in economy. “Omoiyari Culture”(consideration culture) which Japanese originally have will contribute to the world peace. The aged could be an expert for “Omoiyari Culture”. We could expect people overseas coming to Japan for more investment. I want the youth to pay attention to overseas by taking an advantage of this opportunity. We would like to make the most of the power of the aged in helping Southeast Asian countries friendly toward Japan to grow in economy. We want them to find their life worth living. Foreign pressure of TPP is a good opportunity to make Japanese more familiar to globalization. To make Japanese agriculture more attractive and competitive is to change Japan to great extent.
Sales of new cars in USA has been reduced for 2 months in a row in Jan and Feb compared with the same month of the last year because record breaking cold wave hit in Midwestern, Eastern and Southern parts in USA in Jan and Feb. When annualized by actual sales of new car in Feb it would be 15.34 million cars, which is close to actual sales amount of 15.6 million cars in 2013. On top of that, non-agricultural employment increased by 175,000 in Feb compared with the month before. House cost has been rising in many areas because housing supply could not catch up the housing demand. FRB predicts that USA economy has been on the track to recovery. China set up the economic growth rate of 7.5% for 2014 in order to aim at the steady growth and securing of employment and expansion of domestic demand.
According to the British marine transportation research company, Clakson research service the growth on container cargo will expand by 6% in 2014 comparing to 4.9% in 2013 while the slot capacity will grow by 4.8%. Shipping lines who will have a new large container ships will place an order for own containers. On the other hand leasing companies will order more new containers than that of 2013. Major leasing companies will order in level of over 200,000 teu, the medium-sized ones will order around 100,000 teu. The new container price will be in upward toward the summer of the peak season. The current new container price is around $2,300 per 20f. Major container makers have started the production smoothly since March. However, factory stock will increase because the new container demand will occur after spring. Therefore, new container factory stock is around 500,000 teu at moment.
Evergreen Line joins CKYH group to form the alliance of CKYHE in Europe, Mediterranean Sea. We will enter in the times of 3 mega alliances of P3, G6, CKYHE. In Asia region containerships of 1000~2800teu is mainstream but in order to reduce the slot cost 4000~5100teu ships are increasing. Containerships have been cascading from Europe route to North America and North America to Asia region/North and south route accordingly.
EF International Ltd has just entered in the 5th anniversary year in March. There are 7 staff to handle 6 agency business like:
1)Kukdong MES & Jinji MES to handle new and old container
2)Future Box Corp to handle Hybrid Open Top, Sliding Door Container.
3)TydenBrooks to sell the security seal.
4)Mirai Hi-Tec to sell new chassis.
5)UES International (HK) Holding to lease containers.
6)Thermo King to sell Reefer units of Magnum+, Super Freezer and Genset.
This year we would like to add 1~2 young staff to make ourselves more reliable and sustainable to stay as a next-generation company.