Last week, Ocean Treasure’s Manager Director Alex Zhang and CEO Oliver Nikolovski accepted an interview from Undercurrentnews. They showed their views about the freight rates and the outlook for the Chinese market in 2021.
The cost of shipping a container from China to Europe remains $9,000-$10,000, while the price to Latin America is $8,500-$9,500 per container after the holiday, which ended on Feb. 17.-Alex Zhang mentioned in the interview.
Our CEO Oliver Nikolovski added that the shipping cost had climbed from $3,000-$5,000 per container since October 2020 due to the strict pandemic control measures in ports.
Same as we mentioned in the article before.
Massive Price Increase for the Freight Rate!
“Because factories closed earlier and quarantined, many containers now ship out after the delay. The shipment price will not go down easily,” said Nikolovski. “Maybe at the end of February, the price will decrease by 5-10%, then in March down by 20%. It will drop slowly, but not at once.”
Our CEO said that Mexico and Colombia’s shipping costs had started to drop by about 10%. But these for Europe remain high. Because the economic situation in Europe is quite bad, it affects the business a lot.
2020 Sales numbers of Ocean Treasure
In the interview, we also mentioned that our exports increased by 17.6% in 2020, compared with 2019, which shows a significant improvement in this pandemic period despite coronavirus scares and high freight rates. But due to the strict pandemic control measure-nucleic acid testing and disinfection, the import numbers of ocean treasure dropped 12.9% to 1,650t in 2020.
Ocean Treasure is a French seafood supplier based in China. Our business is flexible and healthy during 2020 because we do not have processing plants in China and mainly get material from other countries. That’s why our export number is increasing even in this very situation. But the restriction for the pandemic test and other policies make the suppliers fear to export to China.
“Suppliers shipping to China now have to take the risk their containers test positive. They have to get back the containers, so very few suppliers are willing to take this risk,” he added.
Also, in the domestic market (Hope! The Domestic China Seafood Market 2021 is optimistic!)
The Chinese consumers lost the confidence in buying imported frozen seafood.
“People do not listen to the news entirely, so they think if there is a thing in salmon, that means all the salmon in supermarkets are bad; they may not know to separate the news and reality,” Our CEO Mr. Nikolovski said.
Ocean Treasure still holds a positive view of the seafood market in 2021.
“Restrictions will become more flexible, more businesses will be able to start easily because this is a fast-consuming business,” Nikolovski said.
Ocean Treasure is sure that the Chinese government will figure out the freight issue, and actually, the freight rates are decreasing now. With the booming demand from the catering industry, the 2021 import seafood market is optimistic.
As for a conclusion
- The freight rates are decreasing, and the big demand will come.
- March and April will be the start wave of purchasing from China.
For the detailed interview article, please check in Undercurrent News. Author- Cyrus.Chan
