Ports in China and America point to container shipping’s current malaise

Port of Long Beach
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Air is becoming one of the largest products inside the world’s containers as rates slump and consumer demand falters.

In China, empty containers are stacking up at the nation’s largest ports, with management at many terminals now actively shifting surplus boxes to secondary ports to free up space. It comes at a time where the global number of metal boxes has hit record highs as lines rushed to order more containers during the supply chain pandemonium of the pandemic.

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The container availability index created by German box buying platform Container xChange measures the ratio of inbound to outbound containers port-wise. A reading above 0.5 suggests more inbound than outbound containers at ports in China including Shanghai, Ningbo, Tianjin and Shenzhen. As of February 5, the index read 0.64, an 11th straight week above 0.6.

Across the Pacific from China, part of the reason for the empty containers piling up in Shenzhen and other Asian ports is explained in the latest throughput numbers from the likes of Long Beach, a city gearing up to host the largest TPM in history, container shipping’s annual big get-together.

The latest report from John McCown-led Blue Alpha Capital shows the 10 largest American box ports experienced the largest monthly inbound drop in volumes since the global financial crisis of 2008, down by 17.9%

January marks the seventh straight month of expanding year-over-year declines at American ports. West coast ports were even weaker with a decline of 23.5% in January.

Source: splash247.com