News

Current situation

The Coronavirus combined with the inactivity during the holiday period of Chinese New Year has seriously impacted the activities in Chinese and per extension Far East industries.

The important reduction of industrial output of Chinese industry has caused a  considerable slowdown of the freight demand on the Asia / North West Europe trade. Lack of cargoes to be shipped to and from the Far East has obliged shipping lines to install draconic capacity reducing measures.

Impact on global supply chain

During the coming weeks (hopefully not months), a reduction of 35 % to 50 % or more of the market capacity on the Europe to Far-East trade can been expected / has already been announced.

Sailing capacity will be reduced by the introduction of blanc sailings, void calls and even completely cancelled services. Some carriers already refuse accepting bookings until the end of March 2020.

These measure can also have a giant impact on all other services that are one way or the other connected to the Europe – Far East trade lane (Middle East and eventually also Australia & New Zealand).

Remaining services will be available against payment of considerably higher freight rates and surcharges. The level of such rate – and surcharge increases cannot yet be determined.

The economic consequences Coronavirus can become an important disruptive factor of industrial supply chains!

Consequences

Note that TCL will do everything in its power to make your shipments possible, but we cannot guarantee that all cargo will be shipped as scheduled or expected and that your supply chain will not be affected

Please give serious consideration to this message and think about the eventual consequences for your own supply chain.

TCL is at your disposal for all questions you might have, because of this unfortunate situation.