Globally, as countries have gone in and out of lockdown, port and trucking workers have been impacted by staff illness, quarantining and social distancing along with tighter border restrictions, this has slowed the movement of containers both within countries as well as between countries. Ships are constantly moving around the world trading containers. Generally manufactured goods from Asia are unloaded at their destinations in Europe, Australia and the USA and the empty containers are reloaded with produce, raw materials and other commodities ready to be sent on to other parts of the world. Shipping lines don’t like to move empty containers around the world which becomes a problem when there is an imbalance in world trade. As the pandemic spread throughout the world container ships were often forced to quarantine as crews became sick, slowing the movement of incoming containers further exacerbating the problem. So when China, which is the world’s largest user of shipping containers, had holdups in loading and unloading at their ports at the beginning of the pandemic this left the rest of the world waiting for containers. Now these shipping containers are all interconnected and when one country’s movement of containers slows this sets up a chain reaction that changes the worldwide movement of all containers. It is estimated that there are about 35 million shipping containers in circulation globally. With as much as 90% of the world’s trade transported by sea, the oceans are brimming with container ships, with the largest ships able to transport 19,000 containers at any one time. We all knew that COVID was a disruptor but world freight has been one of its hidden casualties. When one part of this loop is disrupted it has a knock-on effect that sets up a chain reaction further disrupting the spaghetti bowl. Overseas freight is an interconnected spaghetti loop of containers, ships, planes, trucks and people. Well the easy answer is COVID, but that’s not the whole story. Whether you are a wholesaler, retailer or customer, seeing ‘Out of Stock’ on your favourite product can be incredibly frustrating, not understanding why this is happening can make it even worse. You might have noticed that many of your favourite products have become harder to get.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |