People's Daily Online Beijing, September 26 (reporter Wang Lianxiang) Today, the State Information Office held a press conference on accelerating the construction of new infrastructure in the field of transportation. China's imports and exports of goods in the january-August period grew 23.7 percent from the same period in 2020, said Sun Wenjian, spokesman and head of the Policy research office of the Ministry of Transport. Exports rose 23.2 percent from the same period in 2020. The continuous improvement of China's foreign trade situation promotes the demand for international container transportation to grow substantially.

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Sun Wenjian, spokesman of the Ministry of Transport and head of the Policy Research Office. A screenshot of the official website of the State Information Office

The Ministry of Transport, together with the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, will take active measures to coordinate epidemic prevention and control and ensure access to public transportation, Sun said. The specific points are as follows:

First, we will actively guide international liner companies to increase the shipping capacity and container supply of export routes in mainland China and improve the efficiency of container transportation. From January to August this year, the shipping capacity of major liner companies in mainland China also began to increase significantly, with the north American shipping capacity reaching 911 million TEUs, up 40.2% and 24.8% compared with the same period in 2020 and 2019 respectively. Capacity on the northwest European route was 5.67 million TEU, up 23.7 percent and 8 percent from the same period in 2020 and 2019 respectively.

Second, actively cooperate with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to coordinate China's container manufacturers to increase production efforts and coordinate liner companies to speed up the return of empty containers. At present, the monthly production capacity has been increased from the previous 200,000 TEU to the historical highest 500,000 teU. With the release of the capacity of newly made containers in China, the turnover of empty containers has accelerated. According to the main liner companies, the shortage of empty containers has been basically alleviated. China's major container manufacturers have more than 400,000 teUS of new container inventory, new container supply is fully guaranteed. At present, only a few liner enterprises may have a temporary shortage of empty containers in some ports due to delays in shipping schedule, weather, epidemic prevention and control.

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Third, we should encourage port and shipping enterprises and import and export enterprises to strengthen cooperation to overcome difficulties together, and encourage Chinese shippers to actively negotiate long-term transport contracts with liner companies to provide stable supply chain guarantee. Long-term contract customers are the bulk of container transportation. Many overseas shippers will sign long-term contracts to secure transportation services at stable prices. To take an example, a Chinese company signed a long-term contract with a shipping group earlier this year at a price of around $2,600 per box. At present, the single container price has reached tens of thousands of dollars. Here, the Ministry of Transport encourages owners to sign long-term contracts with shipping companies, so that the interests of both sides can be protected and market prices can be suppressed.

Going forward, the Ministry of Transport will continue to work with the Ministry of Commerce and other ministries to implement measures to stabilize foreign trade and ensure the smooth flow of international logistics supply chains, Sun said.