Shipping containers stranded in America and Europe frustrate Chinese exporters

Chinese exporters suffer from extreme shortage and rising costs of shipping containers, which strand in America and Europe due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

East China's Yiwu, also known as China's commodity-exporting hub, bore the brunt when container shortages first hit China starting September 2020. And prices soon rose.

The world's largest straw manufacturer Soton Daily Necessities, located in Yiwu, has been struggling as its stock piles up. Chairman of the company Lou Zhongping told CGTN that they could not find any shipping containers at the initial stage of the shortages, and shipping prices rose higher than his company could manage.

"Now we have around $1 million's worth of products in stock. We still don't have enough containers. Even though we receive orders from abroad, we can't arrange the production and shipment as planned. I wish shipping ports, such as Ningbo Port and Shanghai Port, could allocate some of the resources to local enterprises directly," said Lou.

Professor Liu Chunsheng from Central University of Finance and Economics suggests that big data should be employed to scientifically distribute the shipping containers, and more should be done with the government's help to bring the empty containers back to China.