News digest. 30 Dec
Shortages are making every meal actually happy: how companies are bracing up in the anticipation of the Chinese New Year and find ways to deliver their cargo.
Although Chinese New year is not the end of the world, sometimes with all the delays, it does seem like one because China remains a crucial destination for many sources and suppliers and it is impossible to eliminate it from the logistics chain. As major ports continue experiencing logjams, shortages start spreading way beyond and now reach fast-food chains that cannot ship their cargo on time. Recently McDonald’s had to rent a cargo jet after it had temporarily limited the sale of medium- and large-size French fries in Japan because of delays loading vessels at the Port of Vancouver. Big companies are very cautious with positive predictions for 2022 and so far expect 2022 to start with shortages as demand is not showing any signs of slowing down and Omicron is creating additional constraints, despite the fact that the global container trade has grown 1%. The will be a pre-holiday cargo spike in the first week of February because some South China barge services will remain suspended. In other parts of the world, some companies halt their shipments in order to try to clear backlogs. In the rush for storage that is clearly going to be equal to gold, others extend their feeder boxship charters as well as place new orders for container vessels. The increase of ports’ capacities is also on the list of priorities for the majority of the players. Anticipating the coming year, Hutchison Port’s terminal in Spain will receive $68 million for development. The initiative aims to provide relief to the busy Port of Barcelona that has moved 3.2 million TEU in November, a 21.6% increase on 2020 levels. APM Terminals Apapa, Nigeria’s largest container terminal, has followed suit with the investment of $438 million in upgrading its facility with modern cargo equipment. The struggling Port of LA that has been an ultimate start of handling record volumes of TEU will also get its share of findings from Evergreen. It will spend nearly $70 million on more containers and cranes. In fact, California’s ports (the Port of Oakland in particular) come up with the idea of widening the ship turning basins to accommodate larger container ships calling North America. The widening of the Oakland Harbor turning basins is expected to be a major infrastructure improvement.
As competition increases, authorities are determined to speed up on the initiatives that could help decrease the lines’ already enormous influence by updating FMC policies that would allow easier procedures of filing complaints about unreasonable business practices that result in financial or operational harm. However, the problem with shipping lines is much more complicated and involves different aspects that include cybercrime, accusations that lines do not fulfill their contract commitments, lack of transparency. This year has seen numerous court cases, which prove that FMC has a long way of adjusting its policies in order to meet the monopoly-free agenda.
Is only the shipping sector under cyber-attacks? Rail is also under threat because all modes are now easy targets since everyone’s attention is at the congestion and supply chain disruptions. Hence, UNIFE is calling for full cooperation in the European cybersecurity arena and a collaborative approach between rail stakeholders. Many rail companies are advocating for digitalization, which is a great vision for the future, however, it means that a deeper analysis of all operational cybersecurity-related processes is required to protect companies’ data and operation flow. The UK has recently defined its strategy based on more diversity in the workforce, leveling up the cyber sector across all UK regions, expanding offensive and defensive cyber capabilities. Another pain point for the EU railways was floods, particularly in Germany. Experts estimate that the damage was so severe that the consequences of it will last in 2022 as reconstruction is still in progress and concrete prognoses for recommissioning are not yet possible.
