It was morning on May 23 (Fri) that the “Kurofune (Black Ship)” of 400m in length brought its huge body alongside the South Honmoku pier of Yokohama port. The “Black Ship” was identified as “Marstal Maersk” at the capacity of 18,000teu, the 8th ship out of 10 series of Triple E Class. She will be put in the service between Asia and Europe in June. It was exhibited in Japan on the way. You could easily understand its gigantic size if you compare with 294m in length of the luxurious passenger boat of the third generation, “Queen Elizabeth” and 333m of Tokyo Tower. It takes 43.18 seconds if Michael Johnson, the world record holder of a 400m race could run from the bow to the stern.
Could the gigantic size of the ship give strong impact to people engaged in Japan port business for the gap between the current status in Japan and one side of the movement of the world marine transportation? US Line put the 5,000teu container ships into service in the Pacific trade in the middle of 1980s when container production were still made in Japan and Japan export shared over 70% of all Asia export to the world. We were surprised at the huge size of the ship when she called at Yokohama port. The ship size of 2,000~3,500teu was the mainstream. Disadvantage of the 5,000teu ship was unfortunately a slow sailer at the speed of 12 knots (?) if my memory is correct. Thus, she didn’t match the needs of the times and disappeared from the market with US Line in 1987.
It is about 30 years since then. The export ratio from Japan has continued to decline. I heard that it was less than 10% and probably 6~7%. Japan has no chance to recover old power of export. As a result, the mega ship of Maersk Line will hardly call at Japan in the future. Therefore, I would like to express our gratitude to Maersk Line because they showed us the incomparable world scale. In the meantime, there is little hope of export increase but Japan should have created the hub port. Yokohama port and Kobe port would geographically have an advantage as the hub port of Transpacific trade. It would be the fact that they would concede the position to Busan port. Singapore is 2nd largest port to handle the number of containers in the world. However, the transit cargo shares 85% of the total volume and Busan port of No. 5th in the world has 48% transit cargo share, Kaohsiung port, No. 13th also has 48% of transit cargo. Singapore has continuously been expanding their port facility and will plan to able to handle yearly 65 million teu (more than double of the current size) by 2020. Continuous effort! Japan could contribute to the world if we try to make Japan ports more useful in order to keep up with the world. I don’t think it is late. There is not the retreat even if containerization can go forward. I expect that Japan ports (for coastal vessels and ocean liners) could change to the attractive ones to exporters, manufacturers, shipping lines, companies engaged in the port business.
Ironically the current containerships become gigantic and they don’t require speed but good operating performance. Approval of 3 giant alliances was given in USA and Europe and they are still waiting for approval from other countries but in this fall P3, G6 and CKYHE will eventually start. The role of the container leasing company will become bigger and bigger because shipping lines will need more containers accordingly. Not only actual demand but the following factors will urge shipping lines to need containers.
To replace old containers with new ones
——> every 10~15 years
To replace with larger containerships
——> one time use volume to increase
Cascading of containerships
——> more demand in other than the main routes
To operate containerships economically
—> to increase days of usage by slow speed
Mega alliance of shipping lines
—-> to secure space for empty positioning
Weather factor
——> like heavy snow in USA in Feb and heavy rain in Europe
Social risk
——> Strike by labor unions and trucking companies
It is said that there may be the new containers of 500,000teu or 700,000teu in Chinese factories at present. Shipping lines have strong L/T demand these days so that they are picking up rather earlier. So leasing companies have ordered new containers according to their factory stock. Container makers have secured the lines till Oct. New container price is around $2,100 per 20f as they seemed to put the priority on securing the lines.
U.S. Federal Reserve Board (FRB) has confirmed the expansion of economic activities in U.S.A. The number employed in non-agricultural work in May increased 217,000 from the previous month. Unemployment ratio is 6.3%. Sales of new cars in May exceeded 1.6 million after 10 years. By symbolizing sales of new cars the personal consumption has been expanding in U.S.A. Consequently NY stocks updated the past high in June. European Central Bank (ECB) lowered the policy interest rate 0.1% to the historical low of 0.15% and apply “minus interest policy” (charging interest rate of 0.1% to the bank charging interest rate of 0.1% to the bank who deposits to ECB) in order to spur lending to businesses and to aim at recovering economy by controlling strong Euro.
They say that the growth of China falls below 7% this year. However, the export is enormous and will continue performing the role of the driving force of the world economy. On the other hand Japan’s economy is right in the middle of recovery. Corporation tax revenue seems to increase 1 trillion yen than expected. 24 industry types out of 32 exceeded the previous year in investment in plant and equipment. Growth rate of the average of the payroll of April is 0.9% up from a year earlier. Government is studying to reduce the corporation tax from the current 35% to 20% level in order to support economy. I would like to expect economic growth of the positive spiral. I wish the world economy will smoothly recover and I greatly expect quantitative expansion in global trade in due course and it will bring marine circles more prosperous.