Cars to keep coming from Japan
The boss of shipping and logistics company Moana Blue predicts cars will continue to be shipped out of Japan despite the government planning to introduce a state of emergency for Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures.
Chief executive Nigel Grindall is awaiting full details of what the move means for business following Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s announcement on April 6, but he says the indication is car auctions will continue to operate.
“Most of the auctions are within those prefectures affected, but at this stage the auctions remain open and are mostly electronic and remote anyway,” Grindall told Autofile Online. “Depending on what happens they may go to full remote auctioning.
“The indications we’re getting are also that the prices of cars have dropped significantly for certain models and probably to the point that cars that were more expensive than non-compliant ESC cars may in fact now be cheaper than when people were rush buying earlier this year.”
The state of emergency for parts of Japan may come into action as soon as April 7 and is estimated to last one month. Besides Tokyo and Osaka, it will also cover Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba, Hyogo and Fukuoka prefectures, but it will not lead to lockdowns like the one in New Zealand or parts of the US and Europe.
Once the declaration is made, governors in the designated areas will be able to “request” residents stay at home except for essential tasks. As for businesses, the prefectural governments will ask they “thoroughly implement infection control measures”, but there are no legal penalties if those directives are not followed.
Grindall, pictured, who is also chief executive of border-inspection company Automotive Technologies Ltd (ATL), says his businesses will be working within the rules of the state of emergency.
“The volumes are lower than usual but otherwise, right now, we’re functioning as usual,” he adds.
“I hope the state of emergency will motivate Japan to use their collective responsibility and take common-sense measures and make sure the virus doesn’t spread. The Japanese are very stoic and will do what’s best for the people around them.”
Moana Blue had two ships carrying vehicles arrive at Ports of Auckland last weekend and more New Zealand-bound vessels are due to be loading in Japan in mid and late April.
“We’ve still got many vehicles arriving but they can’t be delivered to owners yet while New Zealand remains at alert level four,” Grindall says.
“We have to pay freight cost and GST and come up with viable storage solutions while we’re in lockdown, so that’s a bit more hectic than usual to make sure the cargo gets to storage. It’s a bit more complicated than usual for us and we’re certainly busy this end.
“Once the lockdown comes off it will be all hands to the pump trying to get cargo to customers who will desperately want access to it in case there are any other lockdowns.”
Grindall says with the Covid-19 situation frequently changing it is hard to predict what lies ahead for the whole automotive supply chain, but he remains confident because the “motor industry is pretty resilient and car dealers are very savvy businesspeople”.
“One of the things that may come out of this, and may be key long term, is for car dealers to come up with a business model where they have a more touchless sales process and reduce the amount of contact points with customers,” he explains.
“That may be a new value-add experience for buying vehicles but everything is changing constantly at the moment, so it’s hard to look too far into the future.”
