China’s rising fruit imports push up demand for refrigerated shipping
September 30, 2014 Category Logistics, Ports & sea transport
Growth in China’s imports of fruit and vegetables is spurring demand for seaborne transport in refrigerated containers. China’s fruit imports are up 26% over the past five years to USD4 billion last year, with exotic fruit such as longan and durian, as well as grapes, showing the biggest increases, according to the International Trade Center (ITC). The sources of the imports are becoming more diverse, extending from its Southeast Asian neighbors to countries in the southern hemisphere. For example, 82% of China’s imports of cherries – popular around Lunar New Year – are from Chile, with which China signed a free trade agreement (FTA) in 2005. Cold chain logistics, historically a weak point for domestic distribution of perishable goods, has attracted significant investment over the past five years. “Cold storage capacity has greatly improved in China. Before it was pretty basic – brick warehouse, chain link fence and a padlock. But now investments are coming, which enables China to handle more perishable imports,” Michael Britton, Asia-Pacific Region General Manager at Hamburg Süd, the world’s fourth-largest refrigerated, or reefer, container carrier by fleet size. For shipping lines, reefer trade is a growing niche market that offers higher returns, but with higher upfront investment. A new reefer container is priced at between USD15,000 to USD20,000 per TEU, eight to 10 times the cost of a dry freight container of the same size, the South China Morning Post reports.
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