“my country’s container manufacturers have increased their productivity, and their monthly production capacity has increased to 500,000 TEUs. In May, the shortage of empty containers in my country’s main ports has dropped to 1.3%, and the shortage of empty containers has been effectively alleviated.” For the recent international container liners The market’s phenomenon of “difficult to find one cabin, hard to find one box, and rising freight rates”, said Zhao Chongjiu, deputy minister of the Ministry of Transport, on the 24th.

At the press conference of the State Council Information Office that day, Zhao Chongjiu analyzed that the increase in freight rates was determined by the contradiction between supply and demand. With the steady recovery of the national economy, the demand for container foreign trade transportation has grown rapidly. However, due to the impact of the epidemic, the efficiency of overseas ports has decreased, making it difficult to transport a large number of empty containers. Coupled with the influence of factors such as the Suez Canal traffic jam, the capacity of the main routes continues to be tight, and the increase in freight rates has become a global phenomenon.

Zhao Chongjiu said that the Ministry of Transport will coordinate the epidemic prevention and control and transportation guarantee work to ensure the transportation of key materials such as civilian and anti-epidemic materials. At the same time, it actively coordinated international liner companies to increase the capacity of China’s export routes and the supply of containers. On the main routes of mainland China, the number of cabins invested by major liner companies increased significantly from January to May this year. Among them, the capacity of North American routes reached 5.51 million TEUs, an increase of 65% over the same period last year, and the capacity of European routes also increased by 38% over the same period last year.

“With the improvement of the epidemic prevention and control situation and the successive resumption of work and production in various countries, the water transport market will gradually return to normal.” Zhao Chongjiu said that in the next step, the Ministry of Transport will work with relevant departments to guide international liner companies to continue to increase the supply of shipping capacity for mainland China export routes. ; Improve the efficiency of container turnover to ensure the stability and smooth flow of the international logistics supply chain; strengthen the supervision of charges at sea ports, and investigate and deal with illegal charges in accordance with the law.

It is understood that in 2020, the national port cargo throughput will be 14.55 billion tons, the port container throughput will be 260 million TEUs, and the port cargo throughput and container throughput will rank first in the world. my country occupies 8 of the world’s top 10 ports in terms of cargo throughput, and my country occupies 7 of the top 10 ports in terms of container throughput.