COPENHAGEN- Top container shipping firm A.P. Moller-Maersk on Tuesday warned its customers it was still struggling to move goods around the world as the easing of congestion is taking longer than the Danish company had hoped for.
The pandemic has prompted shortages of container ships and logjams at ports at a time of very high consumer spending, meaning that hundreds of container vessels are lying idle outside ports.
“Unfortunately, 2022 has not started off as we had hoped,” Maersk said in an advisory published on its web page.
“The pandemic is still going strong and unfortunately, we are seeing new outbreaks impacting our ability to move your cargo,” it said, adding that it expects the constrains to continue “for some time still”.
The biggest waiting times for container vessels to discharge or pick up cargoes were on the US West Coast where the waiting time at Long Beach port in Los Angeles currently is between 38 and 45 days, Maersk said.
However, it noted that there had been some recent easing in Northern Europe where the Port of Antwerp in Belgium was expected to reduce the wait to around two days this week from 10 days the week before.
Meanwhile, Germany’s BGA trade association warned on Wednesday of massive supply chain disruptions due to the rapid spread of the highly infectious Omicron variant of the coronarvirus, but said a long-term collapse of the supply chains was unlikely.
German industry has been hit by supply shortages of microchips and other components, while rising coronavirus cases are clouding the outlook for retailers at the start of 2022.
“There is no risk of collapse, but of a massive disruption of the supply chain – at least temporarily,” BGA President Dirk Jandura was quoted by Funke newspaper group as saying.
Although many wholesalers around the world have made their supply chains more flexible, disruptions in global delivery networks might still occur, he said.
“You cannot fully cover yourself against a global pandemic,” Jandura said, calling for government support through lower energy and electricity prices and other forms of help.
Omicron now accounts for more than 44 percent of coronavirus infections in Germany, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious disease has said. Germany reported 45,690 cases on Tuesday, 49.5 percent more than on the same day a week ago.
Concerns that the new variant could bring critical services to a halt prompted the German government to tighten the rules for restaurant and bar visits and to shorten COVID-19 quarantine periods.
