Why supply-chain snarls still entangle the world

FATHER CHRISTMAS and the global container-shipping industry have similar objectives, though the timescales differ. Santa’s world-spanning logistics operation aims to deliver presents all in one night. Shipping firms step theirs up around September to ensure that gifts and other seasonal goods join a vast global supply chain. But a system that usually operates unnoticed (and unremarked upon) is still in chaos. For months a covid-induced maelstrom of delays and sky-high shipping rates has left goods lingering at sea and shop shelves bare around the world. Politicians insist that the snarls will disappear. But survey the horizon and there is little sign of smoother sailing.

The pandemic has hit shipping firms’ operations along the supply chain. Labour shortages have been worsened by workers forced to isolate. China’s zero-tolerance measures have closed port terminals after the discovery of one or two covid-19 cases. The spread there of the new Omicron variant makes more closures likely. But the most significant impact of the pandemic has been to ignite demand for goods from self-isolating shoppers, particularly Americans eager to buy Chinese products using stimulus money. The value of merchandise goods exported from China to America was 5% greater in the first six months of 2021 compared with 2019, before the pandemic. In September and October it was 19% higher than two years earlier.