• TPM25 | March 2-5, 2025
  • TPM25
  • March 2-5, 2025 | Long Beach Convention Center

Alex Yao

COSCO Shipping Lines

General Manager-Reefer Trade

Lewei Yao(Alex) joined COSCO (now COSCO Shipping) in 2002. Since then, he took multiple positions in departments including Business Planning, Strategic Planning, Transpacific Trade and Global Reefer Trade. For 7 years he was based in LA and assumed the responsibilities as VP of Marketing & Sales of West Coast. With a long & diversified career path, he uses his expertise and background to understand and support COSCO's partners in global supply chain management, dry or reefer. Now he's committed to lead COSCO's reefer team to push forward sustainable digitalized solutions for global accounts, who are responding market needs in an entirely new landscape.  

Sessions With Alex Yao

Wednesday, 6 March

  • 09:55am - 10:40am (PST) / 06/mar/2024 05:55 pm - 06/mar/2024 06:40 pm

    TPM Cold Chain: Recovering From the Abyss: How Service Providers Are Preparing for the Next Volume Surge
    Now that the cargo volume surge and related disruption of 2020 to 2022 has passed, the international cold chain has time to reflect on what went well (not much) during the COVID era, what didn’t (a lot), and how to prepare for the inevitable next market uprising. Following a fairly muted 2022, ocean carriers spent much of 2023 adding reefer plugs and investing in new reefer containers, betting that they’ll win back refrigerated shipments. “We think the carriers will focus a bit more on the reefer trade than they have in the past two years,” Robert Sappio, CEO of reefer lessor SeaCube Containers, told the Journal of Commerce in June. Referring to eastbound trans-Pacific spot dry box rates that have tumbled more than 80 percent since the beginning of 2022, “If you are faced with the choice of chasing a reefer box or chasing a dry box that’s $1,500 or $1,600 in the spot market, it’s a no brainer.” Sappio said he expected global purchases of new reefer containers to grow 5 percent to about 300,000 TEU in 2023. For shippers, a continued influx of reefer capacity and containers would help to sustain rates that have declined by 30% or more since 2022 and significantly more than the unprecedented rates of 2020-2021. But with those rates falling, and earnings plummeting, will carriers maintain the investment pace? And, if capacity continues to outstrip demand, what measures will carriers take to close the gap? This session, featuring a panel of ocean carriers and forwarders will examine how service providers are adapting to new market conditions and what approach they’re taking toward the reefer market in 2024 and beyond.  
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