With the price of global marine transportation continued rising crazily at the beginning of 2021,it’s influencing to the Cross-border fruits and vegetables supply chain. At present, the reefer container is deeply shortage in the global scope, The situation like bust, dump jump have not been effectively alleviated. At the same time, the exchange rate of US dollar against Chinese RMB continued to decline, it caused large exchange rate losses to the exporter.

Sea freight rose suddenly and sharply one night

The freight rates of U.S. line, Euro-Mediterranean line suddenly rose since New Year 2021, surge of nearly 10%, 23% overnight. According to the Frealeos Baltic Daily Index, Freight of the Asia-West Coast rose to $4,189/FEU, three times as high as that of last year, and the Asia-East Coast route rose to $5,397/FEU, it is double of last year; the China-Asia east- Northern Europe route reached $6,992/FEU on January 1, jumping 23.5% overnight, while on the China-East Asia-Mediterranean route it hit an all-time high of $7,101/FEU.

The Asia-UK route even broke through $10,000/FEU in December 2020, and suppliers said that even if prices were so high, "there is still no guarantee of delivery". The biggest rise was on the Asia-South America east coast route, which has already offered more than $10,000/FEU, up 1535% in the past five and a half months.

In addition, a number of shipping companies, including CMA-CGM, Hapag Lloyd, Evergreen, HMM, ONE, Yangming and Star Shipping, have announced that a comprehensive rate increase surcharge of $1,000-$1,200/FEU will be charged on trans-Pacific routes from January 1, 2021.

Some Chinese vegetable exporters said that a container usually cost about $2,000, in the past from Chinese ports to European ports, It has risen to about $9,000 / FCL now, nearly four times than normal. In addition to higher prices, the biggest problem is the shortage of containers, reefer containers a is very difficult to find. Despite the surge in foreign orders, there is a lot of shipping pressure on exports.

The RMB exchange rate creates new high
The RMB Central parity rate broke 6.5 in the second trading day of 2021, creates new high in two and a half years. The profit of exporter reduced because of US dollar relative depreciation.

Last year, the RMB exchange rate showed a trend of first suppression and then upward trend, the exchange rate is lower impacted by the COVID 19 at the beginning of the year. the RMB Yuan has risen nearly 10% as the domestic economy recovery Since May 28, 2020, rebounding by more than 7,000 points. Wang Youxin, a researcher worked in the Bank of China Research Institute, said RMB would remain strong in 2021. 

High capacity is likely to remain during the Spring Festival
According to a senior manager of Maersk, the situation of higher freight due to shortage of containers will not be ended in a short time . some shipping company will keep high capacity during the spring festival. It is different of  last year.

The annual Chinese New Year, global supply chains were affected due to  Chinese factories shut down and caused a sharp drop in offshore productions. Shipping companies will issue blank voyages and a large number of ships will be suspended. the marine transportation could get worse if shipping companies cancel flights just in the time with strong shipping demand and stronger exchange rate of RMB. At present, the blank voyage is much lower than that of last year during the 2021 Spring Festival.