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Congestion in South African ports has a serious impact on food suppliers

Time:2021-08-25 Publisher:Kevin Num:4202

The impact of the epidemic on the world is not over, and the epidemic situation in many countries has rebounded. Affected by the epidemic, many ports have been congested to varying degrees.

At present, the major ports in South Africa are seriously congested due to the impact of the epidemic. 

This has dealt a serious blow to South Africa's import and export, especially the food supply chain.

As one of the important ports in Africa and even the world, Durban port provides reliable transit processing services for global shipping. 

However, due to the aging of equipment and the sharp reduction of port workers, the operation efficiency of Durban port has decreased a lot in recent years.

Relevant data show that Durban port and Cape Town port in South Africa are at the bottom of the global port operation efficiency index. This shows that the port needs to be upgraded as soon as possible.

In fact, not only in the port, the operation near the port is not optimistic. The highway transportation undertaking the port and warehouse is blocked, and the freight capacity is seriously insufficient, which makes a large number of goods and ships pile up in the port.

Some meat suppliers said that the limited cold storage capacity of the port makes it impossible for their meat products to be refrigerated and preserved. 

At the same time, the congestion of the port will make their goods unable to be transferred in time.

Under this double blow, many meat products have been corrupted. This may lead to a shortage of meat products in South Africa in the future.

Now the global shipping capacity is tight, coupled with the shortage of containers. Shipping companies prefer routes with high profits, such as Asia Europe routes and trans Pacific routes.

This undoubtedly brings great difficulties to Africa's import and export. After all, no shipping company is willing to provide ships to African ports for transportation.

Some shipping companies said that they had suspended many routes from South Africa to Asia because they could not afford the risk of cargo delay. This includes oranges shipped from South Africa to China.

In this case, citrus producers have to store citrus in cold storage and reduce working time until the operation of the port returns to normal.

The same is true not only in food, but also in automobile manufacturing. 

Automobile exports decreased by nearly 2% compared with the same period in 2020. At the same time, the need for imported parts is also hindered by port congestion.

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