New coronavirus pneumonia reported at Wuhan City in China last December escalates in the whole land of China. The death toll in China is more than 1,000 on February 11. The movement of 3 billion people is expected in one month of the Lunar New Year. The Chinese government closed Wuhan City for prevention of infection spread on January 23. Wuhan City is an important factory base of China includes the steel industry, car business, a high-technical business. Honda & Nissan Motor have a factory there. The lunar New Year of this year is 7 days from January 24 to 30th. The government extended consecutive holidays until February 10 to prevent expansion of coronavirus. The Chinese government prohibits an individual and the package tour to the foreign countries on January 27. The number of the Chinese overseas tourists of 2018 is a total of 150 million. The influence to give the world sightseeing industry is serious. Consumption by overseas tourists is 120 billion dollars in 2018 and an average of expense per person is about 800 dollars. In 2019 there were 31.88 million visitors in Japan and Chinese occupied 30%, 9.59 million with the first place.
It is expected that 160 million workers come back to the workplace for the operation resumption. There are many places to keep stopping the operation after February 10 to prevent infected persons expansion. The domestic passenger transportation falls 35% of year-to-year basis in the past one month. Most of car factories need many parts so full-scale operation takes time. The damage by the confusion of the supply chain of parts is serious. In Japan, the car motor parts import from China accounts for 3 billion dollars in 30% of the 2019 whole import. People and the thing from China are going to give a big influence to the world, which is the 2nd place of GDP in the world as the world factory. As for SARS that spread in Guangdong, China in November 2002, WHO gave the end declaration eight months later. Can we safely hold the Tokyo Olympics & Paralympics to begin in July & August respectively?
According to the global research company, by extension of holidays the China Port lost export of 6 million TEU in the first quarter of this year and the Chinese main ports would fail by 20% compared with the previous year. Alliance of each shipping line operated by decrease of the number of ships expecting slow demand during the Lune New Year but it will be in a situation that they have to reduce more the number of ships in future.
In 2019 environment of the shipping company is deceleration of the world economy, production base reorganization by the U.S. and China trade friction and ASEAN makes up for a decrease in export for North America as substitute countries from China. The freight rate was weak for a surplus ship but was fluctuate because the decrease of operating ships for the repair work of sulfur oxide (Sox) contributed to drop the freight rate. it is expected that the flow of the thing greatly changes by a decrease in movement of the people and by exporting the parts at the suitable place to substitute the existing supply chains forced by new coronavirus pneumonia in 2020. In this sense it is the year of the big trial for the shipping lines in 2020. As for the employment statistics of January that the U.S. Department of Labor announced on Jan. 7th that the number of the employees in the non-agriculture section increases 225,000 compared with the month before It exceeded market expectation (160,000 increase), the previous month (147,000 increase), and the job situation maintained favorable condition. Unemployment rate in January is 3.6% from the previous month, which become worse 0.1% but is the lowest level in 50 years.
We cannot overlook the movement of daily commodities necessary to fee them when we think about USA population of 330 million and EU Zone population of 450 million. In addition, world population in 2018 is 7.6 billion. The movement of the distribution is not odd.
The construction price at the end of January is $1850 per 20f. The Chinese factory stock was 952,651TEU (Dry: 899,241TEU, Reefer: 53,410TEU).
On the morning of January 15 (Wed) I left for Gimpo Airport of Korea from Haneda Airport with 6 staff to attend the annual meeting of Kukdong MES which is our Partner. It is Korea after a long absence. It was previously held in Shanghai of China at this time. Is it 7 years since the last Korea? It is since I attended at Annual Meeting though cutting an Achilles’ tendon with tennis. An airline advanced me from an economy seat to a business seat then. In addition they graded up another staff as my helper to a business seat next to me. I remember that I appreciated the airline.
The Gimpo airport is considerably maintained, and the facilities become big, too. The airport constructing 7 years ago was reborn beautifully. The venue of Meeting of this year is Marina-bay Hotel in the yacht mooring place near the Han River of 15 minutes by car from the airport. The hotel was the very simple and elegant resort one where considerably many Korean rich families stayed. It was full of many children at late time in the breakfast. Korea is presenting the aspect of the housing bubble now. Kukdong MES already invested in the land which is expected to raise in price after they sold the land with the cruiser display house built several years ago. 60 or more in all participated in the meeting for 2 days starting next day.
It was the business reports by staff from each part of the offices in the world like Korean, Chinese, Urumchi, Russian, Indian, African etc in a schedule closely minute-to-minute from 8:30 a.m. to evening 6:00. I am always impressed by their youth, seriousness, energy, challenge mind every time I participate. Would our staff, 6 from EFI be affected, too?
All the members thoroughly enjoyed Korean food for dinner and the deepened relationship together for two days.