From
George Castro
International analyst
Mega container transporters capable of carrying loads of 220,000 tons – which is equivalent to 24,000 units – cover more than 80% of international trade in 2023especially those that unite the Asian continent with Europe and the United States, with its epicenter in the People’s Republic.
This the trend towards gigantism has been developing since the 1990s; and that is why the size of these megatransports has multiplied by 4 in the last 25 years.
The problem facing these shipping giants is not their energy efficiency, nor their ever-shrinking cost structure, as their enormous size systematically increases these benefits.
Its unique structural discrepancy it is the growing impossibility of using the great communication routes between oceans and seas, such as the Suez or Panama canals.
About two weeks ago, one of these supercontainers ran aground at the head of the Suez Canal, and blocked for more than a week all international trade between the Mediterranean and the Red Seawhich meant that 326 large vessels were paralyzed in that period on both sides of the Canal, with their costs multiplying and a formidable disruption of trade between Europe and Asia, especially Germany on one side, and China on the other .
The People’s Republic is the second largest economy in the world (19.6 trillion US dollars/19% of global GDP), and the main trading power on the planet – the first in exports and the second in foreign purchases -, with a trade international which reached $6.1 trillion last year.
China estimates it will import $40 billion over the next 15 years, including $30 billion in goods and $10 billion in services.
That is why it is absolutely consistent that the People’s Republic is located world leader in large advanced portscapable of receiving and processing mega-container shipments each carrying more than 220,000 tons.
The calculation to be made is as follows: all Southeast Asian countries, excluding China and including Japan, have a total of 31 ports capable of receiving and processing supercontainers, while the People’s Republic has 76 fully automated terminalsin which a combination of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things predominates.
In short, China’s competitive capacity in international trade is truly overwhelming; and this is due, among other things, to the fact that the People’s Republic has invested over $40,000 million in the construction/digitalization of all its ports between 2016 and 2021and plans to spend a similar amount on the same goal over the next 10 years.
This implies that the Chinese port system can receive and process, within a maximum period of 5 days, 275 million containers simultaneously, which is 80% more than the processing capacity of all ASEAN nations (Association of ASEAN. of Southeast Asian Countries); and you can do it with ports 3 and 4 times larger than those of the rest of Asia as a whole.
The port of Qingdao in northeastern China at its “Terminal C” alone can unload 4,323 containers per hour, which is equivalent to 5.2 million units per year; and this happens with a productivity that increases by 30% per year; AND uses only 9 highly skilled workers for this state-of-the-art exercise which control all multiple operations from a single fully automated centre, which operates both day and night.
For its part, the port of Tianjin (northern China) carries out its operations through a network of fully autonomous and automated cranes that unload containers and place them on 76 unmanned electric vehicleswho choose, through an artificial intelligence system, their own optimal routes to reach the waste deposits.
These vehicles, guided by super-precise GPS, move 1,200,000 containers a year; and all this It is carried out with a total of 200 workersamong others, highly qualified technicians and engineers of international standing.
Shanghai is the main port of China, and of the world, and is capable of processing 51 weekly shipments of supercontainers, which are usually bound for the American hemisphere, and mainly for the United States, where most arrive at the port of Long Beach in Los Angeles, where the waiting (or disembarkation) time is between 7 and 12 days, compared to Rotterdam – the large port of entry into Europe -, where processing a unit takes up to 6 days.
In contrast to all this is Ningbo Port, Shanghai which takes 1 to 3 days.
We must add that the ports of the People’s Republic operate around the clock while those on the west coast of the United States, especially Long Beach, operate only 112 hours every 7 days, with Mandatory holidays and unoccupied weekends.
The reason for China’s superior competitiveness in international trade at that time is structural in nature, and as such it has an irreversible meaning.
Source: Clarin
