The Nikkei Newspaper dated Jan. 31 carried it in a big headline that Panasonic will withdraw from Television (TV) production in China and Mexico. Hitachi already withdrew from overseas TV production in 2009. Sharp, Toshiba and Sony have already announced to cut back in the overseas production or to withdraw from overseas TV production. TV was one of the sacred treasures (TV, refrigerator, washing machine) during the economic revival of Japan in the late 1950s.
TV was so expensive that the ordinary people could not afford to buy it when it was introduced in the market. Therefore, TV makers had openly displayed the TV program by the street TV set to promoting TV. There was surprisingly a heavy crowd of people in front of TV set on the street to watch the TV screen. I remembered that I eagerly stared at an unclear TV screen from a distance. I was surprised at seeing the leading edge of technology and I could vaguely imagine a bright future in a childish mind.
The TV program on-the-spot broadcasting was professional wrestling match at that time. Many Japanese people must have regained confidence by seeing that Rikidozan knocked down many American wrestlers by a karate chop such as Lou Thesz, the Sharpe brothers and so on. Such energy must have given Japan to make no resource country of Japan as a technology-driven nation and must have led Japan to 2nd rank after USA in the nominal GDP in the world before 2009 when China exceeded Japan.
In the late1990s Japanese TV makers had led the world in the high technology after moving from a cathode-ray tube to a liquid crystal TV. Home electrical appliances were a symbol of “made in Japan”. However, it is very regrettable to see no powerful energy among them these days. They play second field to Korean maker, Samsung Electronics who is No. 1 in the world for the flat panel TV and semiconductor memory, No. 2 for the cellular phone. Now Japanese makers seem to be forced into a corner by Chinese makers.
There is no exception. We will have to retire from the market unless we have to continuously progress by ourselves and if we are satisfied with the past success story. This principle must apply to all industries. Japanese shipping lines had been exposed globalization from early stage. In 1964 they were grouped into 6 shipping lines. They consolidated others in order to overcome hardships such as the first oil crisis in 1973, the 2nd oil crisis in 1979 and the abrupt yen appreciation after Plaza Accord in 1985. The current 3 Japanese lines have been formed after MOL lastly merged Navix Line in 1999.
They transferred their head office function of Liner section overseas like Singapore for NYK and K Line, Hong Kong for MOL in order to be free from yen appreciation. It was announced that the top of both NYK and K Line will be changed and rejuvenated coming spring. K Line of which liner business share is higher than other 2 shipping lines have been remarkably improving in corporate results these days. 3 Japanese lines have been vigorously surviving in fierce competition after having gotten over a maelstrom of Lehman shock.
Japanese Lines’ Liner Business Section Result
| March Priod 2014 Result |
Prospect for Mar 2015 Announced Jan end | ||
| NYK | Sales | 6,174 | 6,950 |
| Ordinary Profit | -7 | 79 | |
| MOL | Sales | 7,135 | 7900 |
| Ordinary Profit | -145 | -270 | |
| K Line | 5,824 | 6800 | |
| Ordinary Profit | -1 | 185 | |
Unit: hundred million yen
Chinese New Year will start on Feb. 18 in China. Container makers, shipping lines and leasing companies must have been thrown into a flurry of last minute surge in demand. The new container price is $1,950 per 20f as same as one in January. Total of new containers seems to be around 800,000 teu in all China factories. This is because leasing companies must have ordered containers from container makers speculatively in anticipation of strong demand after Chinese New Year.
On the one hand, negotiation between ILWU and PMA has been suspended for the time being. Therefore, many containerships have been anchoring in the ports of US West Coast and waited offshore. On the other hand, containers gone inland had been delayed back to the ports due to heavy snow attacked in East Coast of North America lately. As result it seems to be the fact that shipping lines could not move containers back to China/Asia from North America. They will have to obtain necessary quantity of containers which they could not bring back from North America to cope with demand in March after Chinese New Year. I believe that they have already prepared for any situation. If the demand could exceed anticipation of their volume it would be a big trouble to the person in charge of inventory of each shipping lines how they could secure the new containers and containers idling in the depots from leasing companies in demand area like China/Asia.
It is no easy job to grasp the information that the number of the imported containers and the number of available containers after devanning by port and by a time series, moreover it has to be controlled by the service route and by ship based on the number of containers in need for export by port. In the process of inventory control container repair work has to be considered to avoid any cargo damage later. It is natural for the person in charge of inventory to make inventory job go smooth and if the problem occurs they are blamed for it. Thus, their job may not well rewarded. Therefore, I wish the coming demand after Chinese New Year would cause them less trouble if possible.