Global ocean shipping phenomenon: Containers in developed countries are piled up like a mountain, but in Asia, “one box is hard to find”

In 2020, the global trade is sluggish, and the volume of trade has shrunk. However, since the third quarter of last year, there has been a strange phenomenon in global shipping, that is, "a shortage of containers" and container prices have risen sharply. Global trade has begun to recover this year. The World Trade Organization predicts that global trade growth will reach 8%. Some countries have even started a buy-buy-buy model, and they have exploded in the global market. This makes global shipping even more difficult to find. However, it should be understood that this is not because the containers are really too few and not enough, but man-made. Due to the lack of manpower, the ports of many countries have piled up into mountains, but there are also ports in some countries that are "thirsty for containers", which can be described as "two heavens of ice and fire." First of all, in terms of production capacity, China is the world\'s most important container producer. 100% of the world\'s refrigerated containers and 96% of dry cargo containers are made in China. It can produce about 400,000 pieces per month, and it can produce nearly 5 million pieces a year. But the problem is that there are currently more than 40 million containers in operation worldwide. If the container jams in ports cannot be handled in time, the fundamental problem is still difficult to solve. So, to what extent has the problem of container congestion in global ports reached? CCTV Finance reported in early June that among the 10 busiest ports in the United States, there are at least 7 ports that often face congestion. For example, in California, there are as many as 10,000 to 15,000 containers stranded in the area. The empty containers have not had time to deal with, and there is a steady stream of containers that need to be loaded and unloaded, which will only make the port congestion problem worse. Take the Sandro Bay port on the west coast of the United States as an example. Its handling of Asian containers has set a new record for 11 consecutive months, reaching 1.9 million TEUs. In May last year, this number was only 1.2 million TEUs. Except for the United States, many developed countries are facing the problem of port container congestion. For example, at the Port of Auckland, New Zealand, the backlog of empty containers was close to 6,000 at the most; ports in Australia more than 50,000; containers in the Port of Phillipstowe in the UK spread to the surrounding suburbs... On the other hand, many ports in Asia are often faced with the situation of "a box is hard to find". Why is this happening? Because this region is the main production place, a large part of the various products imported by developed countries such as Europe and the United States come from here. However, after the goods are exported to developed countries such as Europe and the United States, the boxes are difficult to return on time, resulting in a situation of "hard to find a box".