Congestion fee in destination port fee

Shipping delays in Hong Kong have caused major problems for local manufacturers and shippers. Port congestion, serious shortage of containers, and difficulty in booking space have led to a backlog of goods, resulting in high storage costs and freezing of millions of cash flows.
Steve Chuang, vice chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, said that shippers need to wait 10 weeks to obtain a space, and shipping a 40-foot container to the United States costs as much as $15,000.
"Dangerous goods (DG) transportation costs up to 25,000 US dollars, sometimes for a container or to book a space, you need to wait several weeks." Steve Chuang said at the Hong Kong shippers board meeting.

"Nowadays DG refers to any electronic product with lithium batteries. There are many lithium batteries in the renewable energy storage products produced by our company, so the trouble we face is really big."
"We can pay any quotation from the freight forwarder and the carrier, but there is still no container. We have to wait. Some shipping companies don't even accept DG cargo because their general cargo business is very good."
In addition, Steve Chuang said that from the perspective of safety, insurance and high inventory levels, the cost of storing goods in the factory waiting for shipment is very high. "We need to store more goods, which will take up millions of cash flow, which is a real big trouble for Hong Kong manufacturers."

Their troubles don't stop there: Steve Chuang pointed out that Hapag-Lloyd's latest "value-added" surcharge has caused widespread condemnation from shippers. He said that the latest surcharge for shipments from Hong Kong to the United States is US$5,000, which is higher than the overall freight on the same route two years ago.
"I hope that other shipping companies will not follow this practice of levying'creative' value-added surcharges." He added.
Due to the high cost of air freight, Steve Chuang ruled out the possibility of air freight as an alternative. He estimated that the cost of transporting a 40-foot container by air would cost US$500,000. In addition, the capacity of the China-Europe Express is still very low.

At the same time, port congestion in Hong Kong is also getting worse. According to the latest news from FIBS Logistics, export goods are currently delayed for 3 to 5 days, and the carrier even jumped directly to the port.
"The major shipping companies have announced blank voyages next week and cannot place cabins outside Hong Kong." He added.
He said: “For intra-Asia routes, shipping companies have imposed a port congestion surcharge of US$100 on all incoming and outgoing containers, excluding transshipment cargo. For route services in the United States and Canada, until the end of August, except for advanced services, The seats have been overbooked."
According to data from the Hong Kong Shipping Center, the throughput of the Hong Kong port last month was 1.48 million TEU, a year-on-year decrease of 3.1%. In the first half of this year, the total throughput was 8.7 million TEU, a year-on-year increase of 1.3%.