Although the global economy is still continuing to recover, and the shipping market has shown certain signs of improvement in the near future, the shipping market will usher in greater uncertainty in 2024 due to a new round of ship capacity growth and the dilution of short-term first-chain disturbance factors.
A few days ago, the China Shipping Prosperity Survey released by the Shanghai International Shipping Research Center showed that in the first quarter of 2024, China's shipping prosperity index is expected to be 10078 points, down 9At 19 o'clock, it remained at the economic demarcation line. China's shipping confidence index is expected to be 8601 point, down 11. from the fourth quarter of 202363 points, from a weak recession to a relative recession.
In this regard, Zhou Dequan, director of the compilation office of China's shipping prosperity index, said that overall, in the first quarter of 2024, it is expected that the prosperity index and confidence index of all types of shipping companies will decline to varying degrees, and the impact of factors such as the global economic situation, geopolitics, and natural disasters on the shipping industry is still continuing, and it is expected that the heat of China's shipping industry will decline in 2024, and the uncertainty of the shipping market will increase.
The prosperity index of dry bulk transportation enterprises fell the most. According to the survey, the prosperity index of dry bulk shipping companies is expected to decline by 18 in the first quarter of 2024 compared with the fourth quarter of 202395 points, from the relative boom range to the weak recession range. At the same time, the confidence index of dry bulk transportation companies also fell the most, which is expected to fall by 4675 points, from the relative boom range to the relatively sluggish range.
It is expected that dry bulk shipping companies will turn from profit to loss. According to Zhou Dequan's analysis, in the first quarter of 2024, it is expected that the scale of dry bulk transportation enterprises will increase in capacity, but the operating costs of enterprises will be reduced, the turnover of ships will be poor, the freight revenue will decline sharply, and the enterprises will turn from profits to losses; Although the working capital of enterprises is relatively abundant, the financing difficulty is low, and the demand for labor is high, the loan liabilities of enterprises have increased, and the willingness of shipowners to invest in transportation capacity is still not strong.
For the market, confidence is more important than **. What is worrying is that according to the China Shipping Climate Survey, 186% of shipping companies are optimistic about the overall operation of the shipping industry; 44.8% of shipping companies have a general attitude, down 12. from the fourth quarter of 202321 percentage points; The remaining 453% of shipping companies are pessimistic, up 12. from the fourth quarter of 202379 percentage points.
It is worth noting that recently, the port GPT (generative pre-training converter) jointly developed by Tianjin Port Group and Zhejiang Seaport Group and the shipping GPT developed by China Merchants Group have been released one after another, which have become hot spots in the industry. According to this, the relevant survey conducted by the China Shipping Prosperity Index Compilation Office of the Shanghai International Shipping Research Center shows that more than seventy percent of shipping companies as a whole have relevant needs for port and shipping GPT, and will be mainly used in port and shipping logistics knowledge retrieval and Q&A, ** analysis, office assistance, customer management and services, company contract management, and grasp market dynamic information and industry trends. In the future, the continuous breakthrough of new technologies may bring more innovation to the shipping industry.
The trend of freight rates has always been a key issue for the industry. In 2023, the global economy will continue to grow at a low rate, and the shipping market will be affected by the canal crisis and regional armed conflicts. It can be seen that in the face of increased uncertainty in the market in the coming year, port and shipping entrepreneurs are more cautious about the future development trend of freight rates in the shipping market in 2024.
In addition, with the entry into force of the European Union's Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) on 1 January 2024, the preparation of shipping companies is becoming more urgent. In this context, the survey of the China Shipping Prosperity Index Compilation Office of the Shanghai International Shipping Research Center shows that in order to reasonably avoid the impact of EU ETS on enterprises, more than half of the ships and dry bulk transportation companies tend to transfer the freight cost to the downstream of the ** chain by imposing EU ETS surcharges; Half of the container shipping companies tend to invest in new ships using green fuels or buy old ships with low fuel consumption to reasonably avoid the impact of EU ETS on enterprises.
Reporter Meng Ni.