Sea freights reached historical minimums!
According to several sources, sea freight reached historical minimums during November, even lower than during the crisis. However, they doubled in just one month, and now they are most expensive than ever. Price volatility on sea freight (as well as on BASF and other extra costs) is a constant reality thus financing exports has become essential service for freight suppliers. Furthermore, nowadays markets change so fast that is difficult for some exporters to adapt to the constant variations. A country that was a good target yesterday, can be sparse tomorrow; and the other way around. Like for example Iran is certainly a good market now for Industrial Equipment Manufacturers, because they need these type of goods to further develop their industry, though it was not so a few years ago.
On the other hand, Argentina has not been a very attractive market to export in the last 4 or 5 years, but now the new president has promised to release some control measures so import of qualified equipment will be allowed with lower taxes. Whereas, in Brazil, which has been growing for the last years at a fast pace and has been a good target for European producers, its government has been implementing such protectionist measures against exports, especially in those industry areas where they believe Brazilian companies to be stronger, that liberalization of the B2B market. In fact, most of the BRIC countries have undertaken certain changes that do not make them such a nice target for export anymore.
China's internal demand keeps on falling producing a negative loop in global economy causing that APAC and LATAM countries have seen reduced their buying capacity. Russia and China keep implementing protectionist measures as they have developed further for the last years, especially China though due to foreign investment. And let's be honest, Russia's poor play in international affairs lately have also resulted in further restrictions affecting traffic of goods, especially from European companies.
Yes BRIC countries hold still a big number of potential consumers, but those are not available neither profitable to reach right now. However, other areas have recently become more interesting, like Africa or Middle East.
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