Newsletter – April 29, 2021

OCEAN FREIGHT UPDATES

Commons approves back to work legislation for Port of Montreal dockworkers

insidelogistics.ca
The House of Commons has approved legislation to put an end to a strike that has shut down the Port of Montreal.
Conservatives joined forces with the minority Liberal government early Thursday morning to pass Bill C-29 by a vote of 255-61. Three Liberals, as well as Bloc Quebecois, NDP and Green MPs, voted against it. Read more here.

Regulatory purgatory is heaven for rates

splash247.com
Well, what a wonderful position shipowners find themselves thanks to regulatory purgatory.
The waiting for confirmation of the next stage of environmental regulations has put an incredible clamp on ordering new ships – the markets are set to reap lovely returns this year and next from the minuscule orderbooks – though I do concede liners have shot the golden goose and will once again rue their ordering binge over the last eight months, come 2023. Read more here.

Importers lost their pricing power. How should they adapt?

freightwaves.com
The good news for U.S. importers: Demand for consumer goods continues to boom. The bad news: Shipments from Asia face massive delays and even when cargo finally arrives, it costs so much to transport that profit margins are slashed. The worse news: The shift in the balance of power from shippers to ocean carriers does not look temporary.
To better understand how importers should adapt to this challenging new landscape, American Shipper conducted an in-depth interview this week with Jochen Gutschmidt, vice president of global supply chain advisory services at Copenhagen-based Sea-Intelligence. Read more here.

Shipper-carrier relations hit ‘an all-time low’ – ‘it’s all about money’

theloadstar.com
A “short-sighted” approach by shipping lines is driving the degeneration of relationships with their contract shipper customers that could harm them in the future, according to maritime consultant Drewry.
One of several shippers surveyed by the consultant said things had reached an all-time low.
“Relationships with carriers count for nothing these days,” said one large European shipper. “The carriers are very opportunistic and take high-rate spot shipments rather than contract shipments – it is all about money.” Read more here (login required).

Vessel delays and container logjams increase at port of Chittagong

theloadstar.com
Vessels are waiting up to five days for a berth at Chittagong port, adding to the woes of importers during lockdown and the month of Ramadan.
Port officials say during Ramadan, working hours at the port have fallen, resulting in less productivity and longer queues for an unloading window.
Previously, vessels berthed within two days of arriving at the port area and, normally, ships can unload boxes and reload within 48 hours. This has now increased to 72 hours. Read more here (login required).

Container line schedule reliability improves in March

seatrade-maritime.com
Analysts Sea Intelligence reported that the worst appeared to have passed for liner schedule reliability with a 5.8% improvement month-on-month to reach 40.4% across 34 trade lanes and over 60 carriers covered in the survey.
“That said, there is a long way to go to reach the levels of the previous years, as this was still the lowest schedule reliability for April in the 10 years that we have measured schedule reliability, with the gap to 2020 a sharp -29.9 percentage points,” said Alan Murphy, CEO of SeaIntel. Read more here.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS – GOVERNMENT UPDATES

Australia, Japan and India Form Supply Chain Initiative to Counter China

bnnbloomberg.ca
(Bloomberg) — Japan, India and Australia’s trade ministers have met to officially launch the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative, following reports that the three nations are working together to counter China’s dominance on trade in the Indo-Pacific.
Japan’s Hiroshi Kajiyama, India’s Piyush Goyal and Australia’s Dan Tehan agreed in a video conference Tuesday to instruct their officials to share best practices on supply chain resilience, Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said in a statement. They also committed to holding investment promotion events to explore the possibility of diversification of their supply chains. Read more here.