The ripple effects of the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict are hitting South African fruit exporters, leaving containers of fruits bound for the Gulf region stuck in transit.
The crisis is threatening a 1.3-billion-U.S.-dollar export market to the Middle East. Currently, an estimated 167 containers of South African stone fruit are reported to be stranded at sea, risking spoilage. The fresh produce was intended for Gulf markets.
Exporters are attempting to divert shipments to alternative destinations, but their efforts are hindered by varying regulatory standards, limited capacity in alternate markets and additional logistics costs.
Ernst van Biljon, head lecturer in Supply Chain Management at the IMM Graduate School in Johannesburg, noted that the perishable nature of the fruits makes them especially vulnerable to delays during extended shipping times.
"We always talk about maintaining the cold chain, literally from the farmer through to the cold chain containers. Those containers on both container trucks and on ships need to maintain a certain level of temperature, humidity, otherwise you will have spoilage because it takes quite some time for that fruit to reach its destination. Certainly, for the fruit exporters, it is not a good situation at the moment. The Middle East itself has become a very large growing market for us, also largely in recent years due to the tariff issues with the U.S., so we have about 90 percent of our fruit shipments bound for the Middle East that have been disrupted," he said.
South Africa's fruit export hit by US-Israeli war on Iran
Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) enjoyed an "astonishing" market debut on Monday, seeing its shares skyrocket close to 500 percent in a sensational opening day.
CXMT's shares closed at 49 yuan (over 7.20 U.S. dollars) on its Shanghai STAR Market debut Monday, up 465.82 percent from its IPO price of 8.66 yuan, with full-day turnover surpassing 140 billion yuan.
The stock ended its first trading day with a market capitalization of over 3.2 trillion yuan, cementing its position as the largest listed company by market value on the A-share market.
It capped an impressive performance for the firm, which was founded in the sci-tech hub of Hefei of east China's Anhui Province in 2016, and specializes in the manufacture of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips that power mobile phones, PCs, tablets, servers and other consumer products and applications.
Timothy Pope, a Shanghai-based analyst for the China Global Television Network(CGTN), gave his assessment of the chipmaker's immediate market impact.
"CXMT dominated the headlines today, and its debut gave a considerable lift to sentiment-improving risk appetite after a couple of lacklustre weeks. CXMT had created a significant liquidity overhang ahead of its listing, investors raising cash or holding back from buying other shares as they prepared for this debut. But once the market successfully absorbed that enormous new listing, some of that sideline money appears to have returned to other stocks," he said.
"But the CXMT debut itself was astonishing. We use words like 'surge' all the time, and on days like this I regret that because it leaves me sort of without a significantly dramatic word to describe the company gaining almost 500 percent and becoming the Chinese mainland's most valuable listed company on its first day of trade," Pope added.
"CXMT closed 465.8 percent higher, giving it a market valuation of around 3.3 trillion yuan. Now, that does come with an important caveat, however. Only 6.73 percent of the company shares were freely tradable today, and with different groups of shares locked up for periods ranging from six months to three years, it's going to be some time before the market faces sort of meaningful test of that enormous new valuation," he said.
The blockbuster debut caps a historic IPO run with expected total proceeds surpassing 66 billion yuan, making it the largest-ever IPO in China's sci-tech innovation board.
CXMT is expected to generate operating revenue of 110 billion to 120 billion yuan in the first half of this year, with net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company reaching 50 billion to 57 billion yuan, according to the company.
Chinese memory chipmaker CXMT skyrockets to become A-share's most valuable listed company
