At present, the GDP growth rate of the world’s major economies has slowed down significantly, and the US dollar has raised interest rates rapidly, which has triggered a tightening of global monetary liquidity. Superimposed on the impact of the epidemic and high inflation, the growth of external demand has been sluggish, and even began to shrink. Increased expectations of a global economic recession have put pressure on global trade and consumer demand. From the perspective of product structure, since the epidemic in 2020, the consumption of epidemic prevention materials and the “stay-at-home economy” represented by furniture, home appliances, electronic products, and entertainment facilities has grown rapidly, which once drove the growth of my country’s container export volume to a new high. Since 2022, the export volume of epidemic prevention materials and “stay-at-home economy” products has declined. Since July, the growth trend of container export value and export container volume has even reversed.

From the perspective of European and American inventories, in just over two years, the world’s largest buyers, retailers and manufacturers have experienced a process from short supply, global rush for goods to high inventory. For example, some large retail companies such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Target have serious inventory problems. This change is dampening the import drive of buyers, retailers and manufacturers.

While demand is weakening, seaborne supply is increasing. With the slowdown of demand and the more calm, scientific and orderly response of ports, the congestion situation of overseas ports has improved significantly. The global container routes are gradually returning to the original layout, and the return of a large number of overseas empty containers also makes it difficult to return to the previous phenomenon of “hard to find a container” and “hard to find a cabin”.

With the improvement of the imbalance between supply and demand of major routes, the punctuality rate of major liner companies in the world has also begun to gradually recover, and the effective capacity of ships has been continuously released. From March to June 2022, due to the rapid decline in the loading rate of ships on major routes, major liner companies once controlled about 10% of their idle capacity, but they did not stop the continuous decline in freight rates.

Affected by the recent structural changes in the market, the lack of confidence continues to spread, and the global container liner freight rate has declined rapidly, and the spot market has even fallen by more than 80% from its peak relative to its peak. Carriers, freight forwarders and cargo owners are increasingly playing games on freight rates. The relatively strong position of the carrier began to compress the profit margin of the freight forwarder. At the same time, the spot price and the long-term contract price of some main routes have been inverted, and some enterprises have proposed to seek renegotiation of the long-term contract, which may even lead to some breaches of transportation contracts. However, as a market-oriented agreement, it is not easy to modify the agreement, and even faces a huge risk of compensation.