Evidence from UNCTAD proves that the sea-borne supply chain is adaptable and resilient

Dramatic new evidence from the UN Conference on Trade and Development shows just how much the demand for goods has soared because of COVID-19.

Despite what you may have read in various places over the last few days, it provides evidence that the goods supply chain (read: container shipping) is highly resilient.

Key points of supply chain resilience are:

• Ability to be prepared for unexpected risk events
• Responding / recovering to potential disruptions
• Returning to its original situation OR growing by moving to a more desirable state

As we all know, there has been huge economic disruption induced by lockdowns to protect against the virus. One of the side effects has been a dramatic rise in e-commerce around the world which has increased global online retail sales’ share of total retails sales from 16% to 19% in 2020.

“Demand for containerized trade is up on several routes, partly in response to increased purchases by households of consumer goods during confinement measures, with many such goods made in Asia,” UNCTAD notes in its bulletin, “Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on trade and development”.

In Australia, that rise in e-commerce has been profound, as can be seen from the table below. The online share of retail sales has jumped from 5.6 percentage points in 2018 to 9.4 percentage points in 2020. The value of retail sales jumped from US$13.5 billion in 2018 to US$22.9 billion in 2020.

Despite all the difficulties experienced around the world, It is remarkable, and, indeed, a testament to the resilience of the containerised supply chain and container shipping, that the whole logistics system for the supply of goods hasn’t buckled under the increased pressure.

While it is clear that pandemic did cause a fall in the volume of global port calls, UNCTAD largely attributed this to declines in the movements of ferries, cruise ships and ro-ro. However, global container shipping has – despite everything – sailed through the COVID storm and has done its fundamental job: it has delivered the goods.

And, even better, there is evidence that global container shipping is growing back stronger.

“Container ship port calls have recovered and are in many regions back to their pre-pandemic numbers, if not higher,” the UNCTAD asserts.

To read the entire article: click here: https://shipinsight.com/articles/evidence-from-unctad-proves-that-the-sea-borne-supply-chain-is-adaptable-and-resilient/

Source: ShipInsight