The Freight Transport Association (FTA) will raise the issue nationally among its members through the BSC to better understand and quantify the extent of the problem, determine what steps industry could take to mitigate some of the effects on their business, and decide what wider role the FTA should play to help resolve the problem over the medium to long term.

FTA members have been badly affected at the UK's major deepsea container ports at Felixstowe and Southampton and have reported congestion at other ports around the country.

There are reports that inbound boxes are routinely held up at dockside or on board ships at anchor awaiting a berth.

According to the FTA, it is not only importers whose supply chains are threatened. UK exporters are complaining of container and equipment shortages, a problem compounded by global port problems, at the root of which is the phenomenal explosion of imports to Europe from the Far East. This has doubled the pressure on carriers to get empty boxes back to the Far East. With the fourth quarter Christmas peak now in full swing, BSC members are concerned that problems thus far are just the tip of the iceberg.

At least three more years of new boxship capacity is forecast.

Shipping lines continue to place orders for boxship delivery in 2007. The order books suggest that by the end of 2007 the global containership fleet will have seen a 60% increase in capacity over capacity at the start of this year.

The scenario begs two questions.

Will the global economy, and China's boom in particular, continue to sustain this expansion of tonnage or will freight rates plummet because of excess capacity? But if global industrial demand does keep pace with the glut of newbuilds, can the ports possibly keep up?

MJInformation No: 20027