The long wait
This year the forwarding and logistics business depended on the maritime shipping segment to an unprecedented extent. Many industry players see the peak season critically. They aren’t alone – shippers have similar fears.
The situation couldn’t be clearer. Global demand for goods is higher than rarely before; every slightest capacity is put on the market – but the bottlenecks are increasing. According to Charlotte Cook, Vessels Value’s head trade analyst, continued containership congestion is being witnessed at many ports worldwide, including in Zhoushan, Ningbo and Los Angeles, and has now also spread to hubs as varied as Felixstowe and Seattle. There are currently no less than 334 vessels waiting at anchor worldwide, carrying more than 2.2 million teu. “The containership market has been under immense pressure over the last year, with Covid-19-related pent up demand pushing consumer spending up, and bad weather in China and Covid-19-related terminal lockdowns contributing to high port congestion,” Cook explained.
First China was hit; now Vietnam has joined the list
What does this mean, for example for the peak Christmas season of many an importer of consumer goods from the Far East? The problem isn’t limited to China, which is also suffering from inadequate power supplies to its factories, amongst other things. In Q4 importers have also felt the impact of a lockdown in Vietnam, for example. In a comparison of H1 / 2021 and H1 / 2020 the German software manufacturer Setlog has established that products from Vietnam arrive in Europe 25 days later, on average. The evaluation states that only 17% of all deliveries arrived on time. In 2019 this figure stood at 70%, in the difficult year 2020 at about 38%. Apple, Adidas and Nike are amongst those shippers who have been hardest hit by the lockdown in Vietnam. Setlog’s supply chain management experts have predicted that no significant relief is expected before Easter 2022.
The next hurdle already awaits shippers, however. “Problems such as the shortage of tens of thousands of truck drivers, especially in the UK, but also in Germany, other EU states as well as in the USA, will massively disrupt supply chains if remedial measures aren’t taken promptly,” as Patrick Merkel, managing director of Hamburg-based Prologue Solutions, underlined.
Automobile logistics – one of the key sectors
Automobile logistics firms feel they’re in a particularly awkward position. Some are staring at the abyss, the Association of European Vehicle Logistics (ECG) has warned. The body said that it represents about 85% of the new car sector in Europe. ECG president Wolfgang Göbel underscored the fact that “even the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent financial crisis didn’t have the same massive economic impact on our sector as the current supply chain problems.” Production stoppages and shift cancellations are daily occurrences.
The core problem – and one of the leitmotifs of the ECG conference on 14 – 15 October in Brussels – remains a shortage of computer chips. “The industry is struggling to survive in the face of what has been predicted to be the third bad year in a row, and it needs the automotive industry’s support,” says Göbel, calling for manufacturers and logisticians to close ranks.
The ruptures in global supply chains will thus accompany forwarders and logisticians well beyond the difficult Christmas peak season.
