Europe’s Ports Buckle Under Surge in Chinese Exports

With summer temperatures topping 40 degrees Celsius across several European countries, westbound trade from China is heating up just as fast – despite growing concerns among EU politicians over widening trade imbalances.

Prompted by soaring shipments, congestion along the China-Europe Railway Express has worsened during the past few months, according to industry insiders.

“The congestion used to be at China’s departure ports. Now it has shifted to Europe’s ports of entry,” said Andrew Jiang, general manager of freight forwarder Air Sea Transport, which specialises in shipping goods via rail.

While Jiang said the Europe-bound export orders his company handled in June dropped a bit from May’s peak, the latest Chinese customs data showed that the country’s exports to the European Union rose 18.5 per cent year on year in June, more than double the previous month’s growth rate.

Air conditioners embodied the boom, with exports to the EU rising 43.2 per cent year on year to a record US$3.76 billion in the first half, according to a People’s Daily report, citing Chinese customs data.

“Amid frequent extreme heat around the world, exports of ‘cooling’ appliances – including air conditioners, fans and refrigerators totalled 107.91 billion yuan (US$15.94 billion),” Wang Jun, vice-minister of the General Administration of Customs, said at a press conference on Tuesday.

However, the surge of exports to Europe is running into frequent logistics bottlenecks, as heatwaves, port strikes and swelling import volumes strain the transport network between China and the continent.

At Rotterdam, Europe’s largest port, terminals repeatedly halted operations in late June as temperatures climbed, with operators citing overheating equipment and worker safety. Maersk said the heatwave caused “temporary terminal stoppages and productivity losses”.

At Antwerp, Europe’s second-largest container port, a pilots’ dispute left dozens of ships waiting in the North Sea in late June, according to the Flemish maritime authority, which added to congestion across the region.

Heng Yao, a Chinese researcher preparing to move to Germany, abandoned plans to ship an air conditioner by sea after freight forwarders quoted transit times of 40 to 55 days from China to Europe.

“By the time it arrived, summer would already be over,” he said.

Meanwhile, Chinese electrical appliance giant Midea said rail is now one of the main transport channels for its portable split air conditioners, which have been in high demand during Europe’s heatwave.

Sea freight takes 40 to 50 days, compared with 15 to 24 by rail, while relay trucking can deliver products from Wuhu to France in as little as 22 days, the company told the South China Morning Post.

At Horgos in Xinjiang, a major rail crossing on the China-Kazakh border, about 2,000 air conditioners have been dispatched to Europe each day since mid-June, peaking at 5,000, according to the China Business Journal.

Rail, however, is also under growing strain.

For every eight fully loaded trains leaving China for Europe in the first half, only one came back loaded with the rest returning empty, said Jet Young, general manager of Eurasia International Freight Forwarding (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.

The imbalance has created a relocation problem with railway wagons and containers across borders, pushing up operational costs and leaving key hubs such as Malaszewicze in Poland chronically congested.

Although rail operators quote transit times of 15 to 20 days for the whole journey, customers typically plan for 30 days or longer, given the actual situation of border congestion. Higher costs and the risk of delays have limited rail’s appeal as an alternative, Young said.

Hao Panfeng, secretary general of the China Container Industry Association, said about half of the congestion stemmed from surging cargo volume, while infrastructure bottlenecks such as Malaszewicze’s limited transloading capacity and border inspections accounted for the rest. Air conditioners, electric vehicles and e-commerce goods were all competing for railcapacity.

Nevertheless, Hao said he expected demand to remain resilient and that third-quarter volumes should hold up as Christmas restocking begins, with only a modest pullback in the fourth quarter. “Matching last year’s total, or even some growth, should not be a problem.”