The container shortage has not yet been resolved. The cause of this is the major disruption of world trade due to the corona virus. Shipowners have faced tight margins for years and are now seeing their chance to boost profitability. The Dutch exporters of, for example, onions or potatoes notice this. The prices of container transport have increased and availability has decreased.
The price for a container from China to Europe has approximately quadrupled. A container from Europe to China has increased in price by about 80%. This is due to the imbalance that has arisen in the container market.
Imbalance characterizes the market
The global economy is growing again and requires additional transport capacity. In addition, the Chinese economy has started much faster than the European one. Production there is running at full speed again, while we are still in a lockdown here. Europe continues to order things from China. For every 3 containers from China, there is now only 1 return freight. Before the crisis there were still 2.
At the beginning of the crisis, demand for transport decreased. Production came to a standstill in large parts of the world and countries in Asia took very strict measures to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. Customs procedures took longer than normal and there were containers in the ports that could not be unloaded because there were no staff. Shipowners have therefore taken unprofitable routes and ships out of service.
Less has also been invested in the renewal and expansion of containers. Old containers are kept in service for longer due to the shortage. According to specialists, this only plays a minor role in the current shortages. The problem now is mainly the imbalance in world trade and disruptions in the logistics chain. The imbalance in production between Asia and Europe is structural in nature. But in the long term, when world trade normalizes, the shortages will gradually disappear, analysts expect.
More expensive and slower
Before corona, the lead time for a container between Asia and Northern Europe was on average 65 days. That has now increased to approximately 100 days. This is not exactly favorable for perishable goods such as potatoes and onions. Transport has already become considerably more expensive and the quality of the products is also deteriorating due to longer transport times.
To get around the container shortage, some (South) European exporters have tried to transport agricultural goods as bagged goods on a small scale. This proves difficult in practice. Transatlantic transport is virtually impossible in this way due to the size and layout of the ships. It is only suitable for smaller ships used in coastal shipping to, for example, Africa. But the logistics sector is so used to containers that the infrastructure for bagged goods has largely disappeared, not to mention the extra costs.