Recently, relevant national departments have released the holiday schedule for 2021, and many “workers” are happily planning how to arrange and plan their travels. At this time, some people received the holiday notice in advance, but they were miserable.
At the end of November, a factory sent a letter stating that there was a lack of customer orders during the recent off-season in the industry and that it would be on holiday from November 29th. The person who posted the video said that he felt like he was going to lose his job again and could hardly afford to eat.
The off-season is here for foreign trade companies, and the holidays come earlier than in previous years?
It is understood that there are not a few cases in which foreign trade factories have recently announced early holidays.
A shoe factory in Wenzhou issued a holiday notice, stating that due to the impact of the global epidemic, the shoe factory’s production needs to be adjusted, and decided to suspend production from December 1, 2020, and take the annual holiday in advance. The notice also stated that starting from December 1, 2020, it would negotiate with employees to sign a “suspension of labor contract” relationship agreement (that is, suspension of salary and employment).
The factory office of a certain factory issued a notice at the end of November, saying that due to the recent large impact of the epidemic in other provinces and cities, in order to prevent the occurrence of uncontrollable epidemics, the factory received a notice to expect December 31 The holiday starts from today.
Currently, there is a growing buzz about holidays in the market. Many companies plan to take holidays in December. Previously, some media conducted a small survey. The results showed that more companies would take holidays in early January. Many, but not a few have holidays in December. In addition, compared with last year, most manufacturers took a holiday about 15 days before the Spring Festival, but this year some companies have already advanced their holiday plans to about 30 days.
A factory issued a notice stating that the entire factory will be on holiday on December 5, 2020. Every department cleans up in the morning. The material preparation team, cutting bed team, and warehouse will go to work on March 1, 2021, and other departments will go to work on March 5.
Most people believe that the foreign trade industry will be sluggish this year, with the number of orders plummeting by half, and manufacturers’ inventories reaching a maximum of 43-44 days. The market is flooded with information about selling goods, and manufacturers’ profits are generally Less than 10%…Under multiple pressures, a holiday has become the best solution.
The exchange rate is from 7.17 to 6.57, which is very difficult for foreign trade companies
The shipping costs are soaring, and the appreciation of the RMB eats up profits
At the same time, what also causes headaches for foreign trade companies are the constantly refreshing RMB exchange rates and freight forwarding fees.
On December 4, the offshore RMB rose more than 100 basis points against the U.S. dollar during the day, breaking through the 6.52 mark and reporting at 6.5199, continuing to hit a new high since June 2018.
The onshore RMB exchange rate against the US dollar rose above the 6.55 mark at the opening, and then rose above the 6.54 mark during the session, reporting at 6.5343.
From the end of May to the present, the RMB exchange rate has been rising, and has even entered the “6.5 era.” Data from the China Foreign Exchange Trading Center shows that the central parity rate of RMB against the US dollar on November 25 was 6.5749. If calculated based on the lowest point of 7.1775 on May 27, the RMB has appreciated against the US dollar by 8.3% so far.
Economist Ding Meng said that when the local currency appreciates, the price advantage of exported goods will be reduced, and imported goods will be relatively cheaper, which is beneficial to importing companies and will have an impact on companies that import, process and re-export. Limited, but the impact on export companies is greater.
A foreign trade operator in Xiamen gave a vivid metaphor: In May, a batch of goods was exported and quoted at a real-time exchange rate of 7.17. Now the exchange rate has risen to 6.57 by the time of settlement. , the repayment will be significantly “shrunk”. For example, I received a textile order half a year ago with a payment of US$1 million. According to the exchange rate at that time, the income was 7.17 million yuan. But now after delivery and payment, the minimum of US$1 million can only be exchanged for 6.57 million yuan. 600,000 yuan less.
The appreciation of the RMB has a greater impact on enterprises that mainly focus on export business and have high foreign currency assets, especially textiles, clothing, agricultural product processing and other low value-added and low-profit export industries. The negative impact is huge, and how to deal with it has become the biggest challenge for enterprises.
Miss Li, the person in charge of a foreign trade company in Huli District, said that under the pressure of the continuous appreciation of the RMB, she has communicated with customers many times about price increases. “If the price increased by 4%, our profit margin would be more secure, but customers have always disagreed, and we finally reached a price increase of 2%.” She said, this�A process of gaming, raising prices reduces the impact of exchange rates, but also makes their price advantage less attractive.
In order to stabilize customers, a company in Xiamen took the initiative to reduce its gross profit. The person in charge, Mr. Fang, said, “The exchange rate affects the cost of exported goods. The structure has changed. For products that used to have a gross profit of 10%, we have internally reduced the gross profit to 3%, just to avoid losing customers due to price increases.”
In addition, companies are deeply attracted by shipping space The worries of soaring prices and shortage of containers. A cargo owner told reporters that due to the lack of containers, shipping capacity has been greatly affected, resulting in delays in the export of some goods. “I contacted the freight forwarder, but I only got one word – wait, because there are not enough big boxes.” When waiting for the box, there is still a shipping date. “A shipment from Xiamen to the Middle East was shown to have docked in Vietnam 7 days ago, but it is still stranded in Vietnam.”
Executive Vice President of Xiamen Modern Logistics Chamber of Commerce Zhuang Jincan told reporters that global container shipping was originally a cycle. For example, from China to Singapore, the Middle East, Europe, and back to China, the entire transportation process continued to transship different goods at different ports. However, the outbreak of the epidemic disrupted this ” closed loop”. “Europe and the United States import a lot of goods from China. However, due to the impact of the epidemic, there are insufficient manpower, supporting measures, and production capacity. This has directly led to serious delays in shipping ships and congestion and even paralysis of ports in many countries. Not only has the shipping schedule been extended, but many Empty boxes cannot come out, which is the direct reason why there is a “hard to find a box” situation in China.”
For example, the British port of Felixstoin has announced The collection of empty containers has been stopped because congestion has caused containers to spread from ports and distribution centers to surrounding cities and rural areas, and it is expected that this container congestion will continue until early 2021.
Darkness before dawn: Textile companies seek “holiday” to avoid risks
For textile companies Yan said that the experience in 2020 was relatively “dark”. In their words: “In more than ten years of working in the industry, I have never encountered such a market situation.”
On the one hand, The impact of the epidemic on the global economy is still deepening. Although there is good news about the vaccine, it is still in the dilemma of lack of glass bottles. If the vaccine is widely available in March according to the original plan, then overseas markets before March Basically, there will be no big reversal drama in the consumer market, which will have little effect on boosting the market.
On the other hand, the traditional Chinese Spring Festival will be ushered in in two months. Judging from the situation in previous years, the trade market will weaken significantly after New Year’s Day, and various production links will gradually At the end, the market will also enter a vacuum period, and market demand will not start slowly until after the Lantern Festival of the next year.
From the current point of view, the bad news in some industries has formed a bottom-up transmission to the industrial chain. The downstream market has insufficient stamina, the trading atmosphere is poor, coupled with high inventory pressure and Without relief, manufacturers have a strong intention to destock, resulting in frequent low-price operations in the market and chaotic transactions. Many manufacturers that are missing orders have begun to prepare to collect payment for goods, celebrate the New Year in advance, and recuperate. It is expected that more companies will take this “holiday” hedging path in the short term. </p
