The international logistics center in Shenzhen City, China's tech and manufacturing hub, on Thursday witnessed a significant increase in shipment orders to the United States as the two countries made tariff adjustments the day before.
The U.S. government has removed the additional 91 percent tariffs on Chinese goods, effective from 00:01 Eastern Time on May 14, and China has adjusted tariffs on imported U.S. products from 12:01 on the same day. A turnover warehouse in the logistics center aims to maintain a processing time of less than 12 days from order placement to delivery to the U.S. customers. Therefore, goods entering the warehouse must be shipped out within 12 hours each day.
However, due to the rising shipment orders and limited aircraft capacity, some goods are waiting to be shipped and are accumulating in the warehouse.
Ling Hushun, founder of an international logistics company in Shenzhen, said that the limited transportation capacity and rising orders have posed challenges to their cargo handling and overseas customs clearance operations. Currently, his warehouse is capable of managing a daily average of 50 tons of cargo, but the number of daily orders is steadily increasing.
"Our customers are requesting that we ship these goods as quickly as possible, so we expect a small explosive surge in logistics, with the shipments potentially doubling or tripling," said Ling.
As cargo volume increases, air freight prices are also climbing. Many freight companies have reserved container space for flights for next week or even beyond. "Last week, our air freight cost was between 24 and 25 yuan (about 3.33 to 3.47 U.S. dollars) per kilogram, but now it has jumped to 34 to 35 yuan. That's an increase of nearly 10 yuan per kilogram," said Lu Yinghuai, general manager of a logistics company.
"The shipment volume has increased by 30 to 40 percent, and there are noticeably more trucks on the roads. This isn't even the peak period yet, based on our estimates. We expect that in the next week or two, the shipment volume will increase further and we will be even busier, as more goods continue to be produced," said Huang Xiaobin, a local logistics official.
Int'l logistics center in Shenzhen sees surge in shipment orders to US
