"The Belt and Road" leads the development of world shipping
In the national 13th Five Year Plan, Xiamen is listed as one of the four major world shipping bases in China. On February 28th of this year, the State Council released the "13th Five Year Plan for the Development of Modern Inductive Transportation System", which for the first time identified Xiamen as one of the twelve highest level "world-class inductive transportation hubs" in China.
According to Chen Dingyu, Chairman of Xiamen Port Holdings Group, in 2016, Xiamen Port's container throughput reached 9.61 million TEUs, making it the seventh largest port in China and one of the top fifteen in the world. The construction of the Southeast World Shipping Base and regional cruise homeports has achieved significant results, and the shipping industry's services and reputation soft power have also improved.
Xiamen relies on its transportation advantages of sea, land, air, and rail to connect with the 'Belt and Road' internally and connect with ASEAN externally. It plays an increasingly important role in China's participation in globalization, especially in the development of global transactions and container transportation, "said Wu Shunbin, Director of Xiamen Port Authority.
Xu Zuyuan, the former minister of the Ministry of Transport, also said that Xiamen is the fourth world shipping base approved by the country after Shanghai, Tianjin and Dalian. It bears the main responsibility of cross-strait economic and trade communication, and is also one of the main foreign ports of the "the Belt and Road". The location of Xiamen for this container conference demonstrates its position as the main gateway to the Maritime Silk Road.
At the forum, the participants generally believed that the "the Belt and Road" vision advocated by China is becoming a typical representative of transaction globalization through participating in more cooperative partners, building global trading channels and logistics infrastructure, and then promoting transaction flow.
Three moves to seize new opportunities for 'going global'
Facing the new situation and new opportunities of the global shipping industry under the vision of the "the Belt and Road", Xu Zuyuan put forward three propositions.
He believes that the first priority is to plan ahead with a strategic perspective, anticipate and seize opportunities. For example, some Southeast Asian countries accept some manufacturing and transportation services due to their advantages in labor and land costs, which means that the import and export of containers in these countries will be prosperous in the future; In addition, after the deepening and promotion of the "the Belt and Road" proposition, the primary stock is the investment of basic facilities. Relevant countries are bound to have a greater demand for basic raw materials such as iron ore, coal, crude oil, etc., and dry bulk cargo and oil tanker transport malls are bound to usher in a period of vigorous development. It is necessary to understand the relevant national policies, regulations, and market conditions in advance, and then adjust the focus of shipping affairs, routes, and ship types accordingly.
Secondly, one must have the courage to innovate. As a traditional profession, the shipping industry has been pushed into the forefront of innovation in recent years. To use this key to innovate and improve production power and service quality. For example, shipping e-commerce is one of the development trends in the shipping industry. It can change the current situation of poor information flow and lack of cargo matching, greatly improve transportation power, and make the front-end of transportation more transparent and cost-effective. The container transportation visualization currently being promoted can also enable shippers to grasp information about goods anytime and anywhere, improving customer experience.
In addition, shipping companies also need to huddle together for warmth. There are two ways to form a group: one is to form a strong alliance and expand its advantages through comprehensive cooperation. For example, the restructuring of China COSCO Shipping Group, which was completed last year, although the restructuring process was relatively difficult, the impact that occurred after the restructuring exceeded expectations and greatly improved its global competitiveness; There is another form of clustering that complements weaknesses, and a model of this clustering is the merger of China COSCO Shipping Group into China Merchants Group. The two companies have completed capital complementarity in multiple areas, including logistics, power and bulk cargo transportation, park development, port and shipping intermodal transportation, and equipment manufacturing.
