Update June 4th,
Dear Valued Customer,
With this advisory we wish to provide you with the latest COVID-19 traffic light update, enabling you to have a clear understanding of how the world looks like within the transportation and logistics sector.
Generally speaking, lockdown restrictions are easing up around the world and subsequently the movement of cargo is slowly, but surely also is getting easier for all parties involved.
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Update May 26th
The re-opening continues for most countries around the globe with more and more industries kicking into gear again. As a result of this, lockdown restrictions are gradually easing up, enabling cargo to move around again with less hassle.
Read more
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Update May 14th
Dear Valued Customer,
The gradual reopening of countries around the globe continues, with majority of businesses slowly, but surely kicking into gear again. During the last week we have seen volumes starting to flow again in major sourcing countries such as India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia and we expect this trend to continue in the weeks to come.
Same is the case for Australia and New Zealand, Germany and the Scandinavian countries where a state of new normal is imminent. Some of the other major economies such as US, UK and France remain more seriously impacted and for the same reason only a very slow and careful opening is anticipated in these countries. On a positive note Italy and Spain continues on the track of recovery, marking that the worst period of the global pandemic has passed.
Ocean freight export from Europe impacted
As carriers continue with blanking of sailings capacity is tightening up, and it is expected that major space issues in the coming weeks is on the menu for shippers around Europe. We encourage a close dialogue on forecasting for the remainder of May and June including prioritization of orders. As a consequence, we also foresee that export rates could increase further during this period, with this coming on top of the increases implemented during March on the export side.
As the overall supply and demand still favors the demand side, we do however expect that export rates will drop again during Q3 returning to the levels seen prior to outbreak of COVID-19. On the import side from Asia to Europe we see a steady and stable development with a downward trend on the demand side, however rate levels remaining stable despite of this.
Below graph on average rate development illustrates clearly that carriers have maintained a very strict pricing discipline during 2020 with levels being on par with 2018 and 2019.
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Update April 30th
Dear Valued Customer,
Inasmuch that the global situation remains steadily improving and we are all adjusting to working in a COVID-19 environment, we wish to provide you with the latest COVID-19 development within the transportation and logistics industry. In last week’s advisory we labelled the current situation for business as unusual, and we continue to see all parties across the supply chain finding solutions to the challenges, we jointly face.
Similarly, we are seeing the first real signs of the more or less global lockdown easing up, not least in Northern Europe, but also in other countries and regions around the globe. Concrete plans for re-opening of societies are being announced on a daily basis even in some of the countries that have been affected the most i.e. Italy and Spain namely.
Below graph illustrates where many of the major countries are on the curve of recovery, as well as it describes how the global pandemic has effected the respective countries:
Source: flag icons from Vathanx, NPIs from Johns Hopkins via epidemicforecasting.org, NPIs from ACAPS and published by Tomas Pueyo on Medium.com here.
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Update April 16th
Dear Valued Customer,
As societies around the world continue to struggle with the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, we see a development towards some level of “new business normal” with companies across sectors having adjusted their business models and finding new and flexible ways of coping with especially lockdown restrictions. Similarly, there is a strong dedication to keeping the wheels turning throughout the transportation and logistics sector and new products, routings and solutions emerge as a result of this.
Lockdown remains in effect across the globe
The general situation is largely unchanged; however, we see first indications of a number of countries easing up on restrictions installed especially in Northern Europe. Countries such as Norway, Finland, Denmark, Germany and Austria have all announced that a sequenced re-opening of the society will take place in the coming weeks, providing the first optimistic signs we are turning a sharp corner in the development of COVID-19 pandemic.
With this said a number of countries maintain a strict lockdown resulting in limitations to transport movement as well as delays are still to be expected across transport modes.
Here are some of examples of continued lockdown announced during the last week
Dear Valued Customer,
The spread of COVID-19 virus continues to impact the world as a whole, as well as it is increasingly impacting the logistics & transportation sector globally. With further countries declaring a full society lockdown with only essential cargo being approved for transportation, we increasingly experience delays for general cargo and latest this is the case in countries such as India, Vietnam, Pakistan and Spain also owed to the fact that many production and DC facilities have discontinued operations in these countries.
With this said, it is also becoming more and more challenging to provide a generic update on a country level, as many factors by now impact the ability to move cargo in and out of countries.
We are in many cases able to find solutions even in countries where a full and general lockdown has been declared, and encourage specific requests are sent to your regular Scan Global Logistics contact person.
The transportation & logistics sector is as a rule of thumb considered critical infrastructure, and additionally we are in constant dialogue with ocean carriers, airlines, rail operators and hauliers to find new and alternative routings which until now has proven to be possible. An example is our first “own” block train from China to Europe, which you can read about here. Another is the air charter, we arranged from the Nordics to US, which you can read about here.
The traffic light update included in this advisory is basis general cargo, hence note that for essential cargo such as medicine, medical supplies, aid cargo, foodstuff and perishables we will find ways to move it, ensuring we play our part in keeping critical supplies moving.
Lastly, we are starting to see the first significant signs of a major volume slow down across all transport modes as many orders are put on hold or altogether cancelled. This is a natural result of many of the traditional consumer industries being under lockdown across the globe, leading to a dramatic reduction in consumer spending. This will no doubt have an effect on the supply side with many ocean carriers as an example having announced the suspension of key sailings, with schedule delays as a result.
With China showing the way, we remain confident that we will come out on the other side stronger than ever before having identified new and innovative solutions along the way.
For further details on specifics countries and mode of transport, see our overview here.
All information in this advisory is offered to the best of our knowledge and is prone to change.
Yours sincerely,
Scan Global Logistics