But K+N is targeting SMEs for its growth, as its larger customers adopt a more cautious approach to consumer demand. Outgoing CEO Dr Detlef Trefzger said that, while the larger retailers “became cautious” due to supply chain disruptions and had increased their inventory levels, small and medium-...

Yesterday, SM Line CEO Park Kee-hoon said: “We recorded an operating profit of KRW1.82trn ($1.53bn) last year and more than KRW750bn ($581.85m) in the first half of this year, which is a situation where we have a lot of cash. The board decided to invest a certain part because even if we put the ca...

And agriculture shippers hope there will be no repeat of the blockage. “The port of Oakland has resumed full operations,” announced a relieved port executive director Danny Wan yesterday, after truckers had decided not to continue their action at the port’s gates. In protest against California...

Several crew members on ONE Competence, an 8,110 teu ship operated by THE Alliance, tested positive for Covid-19 while the ship was at berth in Busan last week. ONE Competence, which plies the transpacific trades to the US west coast, had entered the HMM PSA Pusan Newport Terminal last Monday, accor...

In a letter to EC executive VP Margrethe Vestager, shippers take issue with the commission’s view that competition in the market is strong and working within the CBER guidelines. Last year, letters on 13 April and 14 September did not appear to shift the European competition regulator’s stance, ...

The analysts say they continue to expect container markets to “run out of steam” in the third quarter, with “a sharper drop-off in Q4 as the unwinding supply chain disruptions and cooling consumer demand drive the decline in freight and time charter rates”. Although it expects freight and ch...

Exacerbating that lingering trade concern, Hapag-Lloyd has announced a stream of intermittent void calls on its Indian Ocean Service (IOS) between West India and North Europe from August through November. ONE is also a consortium partner for the IOS, contributing one vessel out of a total eight ship...

However, imports are well below previous years’ levels, as costs and weather-related factors are hurting the market. China is the top export market for US cherries, and volumes kept growing through the pandemic – last year it imported more than 1m boxes, weighing 10kg each. Lockdowns and airfrei...

According to Hong Kong-based digital wholesale marketplace Peeba, while the world is likely to see record Covid cases this winter, this is unlikely to lead to more supply chain disruption, except in China, where business disruption is “driving companies to alternative markets.” Peeba supply chai...

One South-east Asian forwarder said: “The demand for airfreight to Europe and the US is looking a bit subdued. “However we note that this time last year, it wasn’t too strong either. Coupled with the fact that there is substantially more capacity this year, I wouldn’t say demand has dropped ...