Global congestion impacting intra-Asia trade lanes 21/11/21

The ripple effects of global port congestion are affecting intra-Asia trade lanes, with large amounts of cargo stuck at south-east transhipment hubs.

Transhipment freight from Europe, Africa, Oceania and the US is being discharged with no mainline connecting vessels coming in on time to load the containers. Notably, the Singapore port authority (PSA) was last month forced to open a new storage area to cope with the overflow of boxes.

Congestion is also impacting intra-Asia feeder traffic, which has led to a severe shortage of both space and equipment in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.

With Vietnam emerging from lockdown, there is some optimism that carriers will inject additional capacity into south-east Asia. While Taiwanese carrier Wan Hai has recently added transpacific capacity into the market to serve Vietnamese and Indian volumes, mainline carriers are yet to do the same.

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