The pressure on the supply chain caused by the shortage of containers in Asia will continue for at least another 6-8 weeks, which means it will affect shipments before the Spring Festival.
Hapag-Lloyd CEO Habben Jansen said that in order to meet the strong market demand, the company has added about 250,000 TEU of container equipment in 2020, but it is still facing shortages in recent months. "The congestion of the port and the increase in traffic have exacerbated this problem. I think this tension will ease in another 6-8 weeks."
Congestion means that a considerable number of ships have been postponed, which has also led to a continuous decline in weekly available capacity. Jansen called on shippers to provide more accurate demand information, and fulfill the promise of container volume in order to solve the problem. Jansen said that in the past few months, the volume of booked boxes has risen by 80%-90%. This means that the gap between the number of orders received by operators and the final shipment volume is getting wider.
He also called on customers to return the containers as soon as possible to reduce turnaround time.
"Generally speaking, the average number of times a container is used in a year is 5 times, but this year it has dropped to 4.5 times, which means that 10%-15% of additional containers are needed to maintain normal operations. This is also our request for customers as soon as possible The reason for returning the containers.” Jansen believes that the shortage of containers is one of the reasons for the record-setting east-west trunk line freight rates, but this surge is temporary and will fall back when demand slows.
