Since August, the price of container freight from China to the United States has soared ten times, setting a record high. Due to the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus pandemic, containers shipped from China cannot return immediately after unloading at their destinations, causing congestion due to empty cargo rotation and limited shipping capacity.
Global shipping prices continue to rise as containers become difficult to find. Since January, the cost of container shipping has grown four times. As of Sept. 17, the China Containerized Freight Index (CCFI) has increased by 90.34 percent from the beginning of 2021.
According to data from previous years, shipping a 40-foot container from China to the United States cost around $1,000 to $2,000. Since August of 2021, the container freight rate from China to the United States had exceeded $20,000 per 40-foot container, an increase of ten times and a historic high.
Wang Qian, an employee of China Yuexin Logistics, told Beijing news magazine Caijing that in 2019, the freight cost for a 40-foot container from Tianjin, China to Los Angeles was $1,600 to $1,700. And now it costs $15,000.
Qian suggested that the long docking time for cargo at foreign terminals results in high costs. To save costs, many shipping companies return before collecting empty containers, resulting in fewer and fewer containers in China. Empty containers are usually fully taken in the early morning. Many wait in line for the broken containers to be repaired, and they are snatched away immediately after the repair. Some shipping companies have opened online reservations for freight in the middle of the night.
Mr. Li, a Chinese shipping agency insider, talked to The Epoch Times about the situation. Containers from China cannot be unloaded immediately after arriving at their destination.
