90% of orders evaporated

Sunny Worldwide LogisticsIt is a logistics company with more than 20 years of transportation experience, focusing on markets such as Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, and Southeast Asia. It is more of a cargo owner than a cargo owner~

Since Iran announced the opening of the Strait of Hormuz on the evening of April 17, the traffic status has changed repeatedly. The first opening lasted only a few hours before being closed; less than 24 hours after the second opening, Iran resumed control again, causing 13 ships to turn back, four of which turned around after passing through the strait. There were also three ship attacks on the same day, bringing the total number of ships attacked to 29.

A shipping company in Zhejiang revealed that it still has more than 50 container ships floating at sea, originally planned to be shipped to Europe, the Middle East and Africa. After the conflict broke out, about 20 ships were urgently stopped loading containers, and some were diverted to China-Europe freight trains. However, demurrage charges and transshipment charges increased every day.

Although countries in the Middle East have launched "alternative logistics corridors", the UAE's Khor Fakkan Port, Fujairah Port and Oman's Sohar Port are all small ports with limited processing capacity and are currently fully saturated. Subsequent ships cannot enter the port and can only wait at sea. Many ships choose to take the Red Sea to Jeddah Port in Saudi Arabia and then transfer to land transportation. However, "the total cost of sea transportation and land transportation has almost doubled."

A trader with 15 years of experience revealed that in normal times, the shipping fee for a single standard container from Shanghai to the Middle East is only US,000 to US,000. Nowadays, the basic sea freight has risen to US,000 to US,000. With war risk surcharges, etc., an additional US,000 to US,000 is added to a single container. The total cost reaches a maximum of more than US,000, which is nearly three times higher than the normal level. "Unless buyers are willing to bear high prices, exporters will basically wait and see."

What’s even more troublesome is that staff from the Yiwu Cross-Border E-commerce Association revealed that the daily container detention fee is as high as 400 to 500 euros per container. The shipping company has the right to unload the goods to the "most convenient and safest port", and the cargo owner must pick up the goods by themselves and bear all costs. The value of a single container of some low-priced small commodities is only about US,000, and the freight and value are almost 1:1. Considering the difficulty of fulfilling the contract, some traders may choose to abandon the goods.

According to Zhejiang media reports, Yiwu's exports to the Middle East market in 2025 will be 109.37 billion yuan, an increase of 22.2% over the previous year. Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, etc. are Yiwu's main trading partners in the Middle East.

From this year’s Spring Festival to mid-March is Ramadan in the Middle East in 2026, which is also the peak of Yiwu’s foreign trade shipments. Some orders finalized years ago were originally planned to be shipped after the year. However, due to the war, domestic suppliers were worried about not receiving the final payment and suspended shipments. Merchants in the Middle East were worried about not receiving the goods and directly informed the sellers to "don't ship yet." A foreign trade person said: "The war in the Middle East has disrupted the peak consumption season of Ramadan."

A small department store supplier said that in previous years, Ramadan order volume was 50% to 100% higher than usual, and the maximum sales volume in that month could exceed 20 million yuan. However, from March to April this year, only more than 1 million yuan of goods were sold, which was less than 1/10 of the usual amount.