This year, affected by the epidemic and inflation, overseas consumers' demand for online shopping has been declining, sellers of shipments have decreased, but also led to the freight forwarding logistics market in a state of out of stock, last year plagued sellers for a long time port congestion problem is not easy to ease.

However, the recent strike by multinational workers has caused the port congestion problem to spread around the world again.

According to Clarksons's container ship port congestion index, as of the end of June, 36.2% of the world's container fleet was trapped in ports, up from 2016 to 2019 COVID-19 the pandemic of 31.5%.

01 European Ports Fall into Historic Congestion

last month, Rotterdam, Europe's largest port, was in a hurry, with 85% of the yard space and a 100% utilization rate of refrigerated containers. Although the pick-up rate has increased, the long stay time of transshipment and imported goods has made many European shipping industry people feel anxious.

And Germany's Kiel (IfW) World Economic Research Institute released this week's latest report, also further reveals the European historic congestion situation, how serious.

The report shows that last month, more than 2% of the world's capacity in the North Sea was at a standstill, which is a "very rare" situation for the ports there, the current container traffic congestion can not see the end, other areas of port congestion is also increasing.

Due to unusually long congestion, these ships cannot load and unload cargo. The disturbing phenomenon is a reminder that although the epidemic blockade has become a distant memory, the supply chain is still severely blocked.

This may have an impact on future trade and transportation.

02 North Sea Congestion Will Affect Overseas Trade

Germany's Kiel (IfW) World Economic Research Director Vincent Stamer said, "Overall, the global trade in June showed a slightly positive trend, but congestion, high freight costs and resulting export bottlenecks hindered trade, especially to Europe."

Vincent Stamer also pointed out that shipping congestion was very rare in the North Sea region in the past. For Germany and the EU, this will mainly affect overseas trade, especially with Asia.

for example, consumer electronics, furniture or textiles shipped from Asia. The report of the Kiel Institute for World Economics pointed out that to further complicate the situation, the number of container ships on the Red Sea route (the most important trade route between Europe and Asia) is also about 20% less than normally estimated.

The last time there was such a big gap, it dates back to the beginning of the outbreak two years ago.

Vincent Stamer believes that "a decisive factor may be that due to the 40-day voyage from China to Europe, the negative impact of the epidemic still exists.

Container ship congestion in the North Sea and the increasing importance of railway transportation due to the New Belt and Road Initiative may reduce the volume of ships on the Red Sea route." For the current troubled European economy, it is by no means a good thing.

According to the Kiel World Economic Research Institute's latest trade data, the global trade index in June increased by 0.4% compared with the previous month, but Europe was the weakest, with the EU's overall exports declining (-0.5%) and imports increasing slightly (+0.8%).

by contrast, both the United States and China showed strong growth in imports and exports. Dirk Jandura, chairman of the German Federal Association of Foreign Trade and Wholesalers (BGA), said earlier this week that "although German foreign trade continues to remain strong in the crisis, the outlook is no longer optimistic."

03 Long Beach, Los Angeles Port Congestion

At the same time, Los Angeles and Long Beach ports also piled up a large number of containers.

The two ports handle about 40% of the U.S. container import traffic and 25% of the total export volume, because the operation is inefficient and the problem is increasingly prominent.

recently, a freight forwarder said: at present, all docks in long beach in the United States are seriously blocked and some docks have been completely paralyzed. even though a batch of container lifting vehicles have been added in advance to deal with it and their efforts have been made to minimize the impact, it is still difficult to restore the normal container lifting efficiency according to the current rhythm.
In addition, the situation at the Los Angeles Pier is not optimistic.

It is understood that as of July 1, the total number of imported containers on the Los Angeles Port terminal was 67884, of which 26416 were stranded at the terminal for 9 days or more; the number of empty containers in and outside the terminal yard/warehouse was 52825.

At present, some freight forwarders said: "LA terminal is very slow, no one works, new york terminal cma msa wanhai hapag is not empty yet. It is very troublesome, and the oil cost is also expensive. So trucks can do it, if not, they can do it at their own discretion. LAX air transportation inspection probability is high, checkpoint charges are very touching."

In response, the freight forwarder suggested that the new york terminal can choose COSCO,OOCL,EVERGREEN,LA terminal is the most stable only MATSON, the EVERGREEN is OK, OOCL is reluctant.

Dear shippers and friends, you can know the specific situation and make a choice.

Maersk recently warned that the possibility of implementing demurrage fees at ports has risen sharply. The media also said that the fee would be reassessed every week and could be implemented at any time.

Therefore, for cargo owners, not only logistics congestion intensified, but also face the possibility of rising logistics costs.

Source: Search.com