Singapore's NOL chief Ron Widows told a group of garment importers that tight shipping capacity and lack of containers in the industry might emerge in next few years, reported American Shipper."Based on the bounce that we have seen, as well as what we have seen on the asset side, we are probably looking at something around 2013 when not only is there a rebalancing of supply and demand, but probably a squeeze," Mr Widows spoke at a meeting after the annual conference of the American Import Shippers Association and the United States Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel.
He said there are just very few people ordering ships. "Ship financing is still largely locked up. The KGs are largely out of business. The Germans who built a lot of ships are largely not buying ships. There are no ships being bought on speculation, that is going to have the effect of tightening the supply side."
"KG" stands for kommanditgesellschaft in German, which means limited partnerships. They were widely used to finance containership construction in the past, but "that scheme for raising financing is effectively gone," said Mr Widdows, citing American Shipper.
He forecast that "capacity next year will be adequate, some squeezes in the peaks, maybe. But there is enough capacity in the world to meet the demand based on the growth we are projecting."
Also, slow steaming is likely here to stay, but would be less attractive on the transpacific to US-flag operators, he added.
Regarding the supply of containers, he said container manufacturers have started to increase production, but it may not be able to satisfy the demand in the shipping industry.
In 2011, the industry will "probably face less problems with containers. That presumes that leasing companies and carriers are going to pay historic high asset prices."
But for exporters, they might encounter the difficulty in getting containers. He said the price of a TEU has climbed to US$2,700 from about $1,500 already.
Source : HKSG, 22.11.10.
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