Continued strong demand for international container transport, the global spread of the new crown pneumonia epidemic led to overseas logistics supply chain obstruction, serious congestion in some countries' ports and the Suez Canal blocked navigation, the international container shipping market capacity supply and demand imbalance, container ship capacity tension, shipping logistics supply chain of many aspects of high prices become a common global phenomenon.

　　However, the continuation of 15 months of the rising market since the fourth quarter of last year began to fall. Especially in mid-September last year, due to electricity tension led to a large number of factories to limit electricity, coupled with high shipping prices forced foreign trade enterprises to reduce shipments, container export volume rose from the high point back down, the industry anxiety "a box hard to find" the first to ease, "a cabin hard to find " also tends to moderate.

　　Most of the container industry upstream and downstream enterprises have made cautiously optimistic expectations for this year's market, judgment this year will not appear again last year's scene, will enter an adjustment period.

　　The industry returns to rational development

　　"China's container international transport market in 2021, there is a historical record 'ceiling', experienced a surge in orders, high prices, the extreme situation of supply exceeds demand." China Container Industry Association Executive Vice President and Secretary-General Li Mu Yuan explained that the so-called "ceiling" phenomenon, is the past ten years did not appear, the next ten years is also difficult to reproduce.

　　However, the momentum of such madness has been curbed. "From the fourth quarter of last year, 'a box is difficult to find' situation has basically been alleviated." Huang Tianhua, president of the China Container Industry Association, said at a conference on the operation of the container industry in the first half of 2022 that in the first half of this year, container production was about 1.62 million standard containers, down 40.9% year-on-year, and the industry as a whole returned to rationality and returned to a historically normal level.

　　Container industry back to normal is closely related to the return of normal transportation. In the first half of the year, in the domestic epidemic multi-point distribution and the impact of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict background, China's multimodal transport withstood the test, sea-rail intermodal transport continued to grow, the rapid recovery of China-European Liner, to protect the stability of the international and domestic industry chain supply chain, to speed up the promotion of the resumption of production, business and market, has played an important supporting role.

　　The Ministry of Transport released data, the first half of the year, China's container throughput completed 140 million standard containers, an increase of 3%; including foreign trade container throughput of more than 85 million standard containers, an increase of 6.1%.

　　"Overall, in the joint efforts of all parties, with the logistics to ensure smooth and other measures in place, the main indicators of transport in the first half of the year after a short period of fluctuations in April gradually recovered, especially the volume of freight basically recovered to the same level last year, the port of foreign trade container throughput to maintain growth, traffic investment, express business volume overall return to the normal development track. " Ministry of Transport spokesman Shuchi said.

　　"In the medium and long term, it is expected that China's major ports container transport will gradually slow down from the high speed growth, and the competition between ports will intensify." Xie Gang, a professor at the Forecasting Science Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said.

　　Sea-rail intermodal transport counter-trend growth

　　Data show that in the first half of the year, the national port cargo throughput of 7.58 billion tons, down 0.8% year-on-year, foreign trade cargo throughput of 2.27 billion tons, down 3.7% year-on-year.

　　In the first quarter, port container transport by the traditional off-season of the Spring Festival and the impact of the epidemic, freight rates began to fall, the growth rate generally slowed down, foreign trade container slots appear vacant. All major coastal port enterprises said that under the epidemic, road transportation was severely hampered, the overall transportation costs increased significantly, the supply chain was not smooth, which brought about a reduction in factory shipments, container trucks were restricted from entering and leaving the port, container container sources were tight, shipping companies temporarily changed routes, as well as the differences in anti-epidemic policies around the port production organization brought great challenges. Rapid recovery, not only to make up for the loss of the first quarter, most ports year-on-year growth significantly.

　　"In contrast to the decline in port cargo throughput, the first half of China's port container throughput and sea-rail intermodal transport volume overall showed steady growth." Li Mu Yuan pointed out that the average of the year-on-year increase in the volume of sea-rail intermodal transport in coastal ports in the first half of the year was close to 20%. Affected by the epidemic several ports also in the sea-rail intermodal transport to achieve counter-trend growth, such as the Port of Shanghai, Yantian Port, Dalian Port, Guangzhou Port sea-rail intermodal transport volume have achieved significant growth.

　　According to the China Container Industry Association of 11 coastal sea-rail intermodal transport main port statistics, the main coastal ports to complete the sea-rail intermodal transport 4.217 million standard containers, sea-rail intermodal transport accounted for a general increase in the proportion of port collection and distribution, up to 23.6%.

　　"Many ports affected by the epidemic, although the growth rate of container throughput slowed down or year-on-year to maintain a basic balance, but the sea-rail intermodal transport year-on-year growth rate mostly exceeded double digits." Li Mu Yuan said that the epidemic affected the road transportation, the advantages of railroad transportation came to the fore, which once again proves the important role of multimodal transport for China's logistics chain and supply chain security and stability.

　　At the end of 2021, the General Office of the State Council issued a "work program to promote the development of multimodal transport to optimize the adjustment of transport structure (2021-2025)". In the first half of this year, the coastal ports have taken the sea-rail intermodal transport as the key work and the main grasp of port upgrading and development, and achieved fruitful results.

　　China-Europe Class Train Shows Resilience

　　A few days ago, China's first China-European liner line - China-European liner (Chongqing) started to exceed 10,000, which means that China-European liner has become an important bridge of cooperation and development between China and Europe, and also marks the service of China-European liner to build "One Belt, One Road" with high quality and guarantee the international The latest data of China National Railway Group Co.

　　According to the latest data of China National Railways Group Corporation, from January to July this year, the total number of China-Europe Classes was 8,990, sending 869,000 standard containers of goods, an increase of 3% and 4% respectively. Among them, 1,517 trains were operated in July and 149,000 TEUs of cargo were sent, up 11% and 12% year-on-year respectively, both hitting a record high.

　　In the world under the serious impact of the epidemic, the container industry in addition to efforts to ensure the efficiency of port transport, expand the rail-sea intermodal transport, but also actively through the increasingly mature China-European train, to maintain the stability of the international industry chain supply chain.

　　"In the first half of this year's trough, China-European Liner still maintained at more than 1,100 columns, a higher level in the past three years. in May and June began to re-start the historical high of more than 1,300 columns, and in July continued to resume growth to a record high, with more than 1,517 columns, container volume growth reached 14.9% YoY. " Li Mu Yuan introduced.

　　The platform and operating enterprises of China-EU Liner generally said that the total market demand has basically recovered as the cargo volume of China-EU Liner gradually picked up after the "May Day" holiday, and the congestion in European ports from April to May also prompted some lost customers to return to China-EU Liner.

　　"We can see that the impact of Russia-Ukraine conflict on CEB is gradually reduced, and the resilience of CEB is beginning to appear. The rigid demand of China-European Liner as the emerging market of China's international logistics channel is becoming clearer and clearer." Li Mu Yuan said.