Cargo is arriving in Europe and nobody wants it – Covid-19 impact on global supply chain
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European ports and warehouses face a logjam of manufactured goods in the coming weeks as container ships which set off from Asia before the coronavirus pandemic spread reach their destinations only to find that demand has evaporated.
Financial Times reports that merchandise which retailers ordered in the brief period when the Chinese economy was grinding back into gear, but before European countries went into lockdown, is starting to land at ports such as Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg.
But swaths of Europe are at a virtual standstill because of restrictions on movement and business activity which aim to stem the spread of the virus.
The report adds that there are concerns that bottlenecks will emerge in the supply chain that takes goods from quayside to consumer.
“This cargo is arriving in Europe and nobody wants it — that’s the problem. You’ll have four to five weeks of inventory piling up in the ports,” said Lars Jensen, chief executive at SeaIntelligence Consulting.
“Importers are going to be faced with the problem of overflowing warehouses and large amounts of goods they need to take delivery of that realistically they’re not going to be able to sell.”
