From the end of last year to the present, as a whole, the cost of global shipping has increased significantly. It can be said that the increase has doubled. The increase is caused by a series of reasons:
The global shipping fleet is in a stage of lack of access and capacity transition, resulting in insufficient shipping capacity. On the one hand, more than ten years have passed since the last wave of shipbuilding craze. Many ships are older and the global standards for carbon reduction and environmental protection have been greatly improved. As a result, many ships will not meet the standards. Coupled with the impact of the epidemic at the beginning of last year, global trade was almost in shock in the first half of last year, and the volume of trade fell precipitously. In that case, shipping companies and shipowners were generally not optimistic about the shipping market at that time and decided to speed up the elimination of old ships while the market prospects were relatively bleak.
But after September 2020, global trade began to show a relatively strong recovery. In the first few months of this year, the growth rate of global trade and transportation volume is still not small, and there is a large imbalance between transportation capacity and transportation demand, which is the biggest reason.
On this basis, there are some other factors that have led to the obstruction of shipping and the increase in costs. First, the global fuel cost has risen sharply; second, in the transportation and logistics links, quarantine and other delays and corresponding costs have appeared obvious rise.
All these factors combined have led to a substantial increase in global shipping prices.
