With the holiday season behind us and port congestion in Europe and the US showing little improvement, exporters are now down shifting timelines for shipments hoping that delays will ease up and rates will soften.
LOGISTICS
From Asia to North America delays and sliding departures at origin are continuing to bring on-time performance and schedule reliability to historical lows, according to Flexport.
From Asia to Europe continuous vessel delays and shifts, schedule reliability was very low and delays for pre-Chinese New Year sailings will have a significant impact into the post-Chinese New Year period, said Flexport.
The ports of LA/Long Beach announced that ocean carriers have agreed to carry any available empty container – even from competing lines – back to Asia, reducing some of the complexity that can slow things down, according to Freightos.
Labor shortages are making it difficult to reduce the backlog at LA/Long Beach, despite a slowdown in inbound cargo around Chinese New Year, according to the Journal of Commerce.
PODCAST
The Big Movement Towards Downsizing
In a reversal of a decades-long trend where it seemed as if even too much wasn’t enough, a growing number of people are looking to get rid of all those things that they don’t really need.
In this podcast Sheri Koones, an international expert on the ‘small house movement’ and author of 10 bestselling books on the subject, gives us insights into:
- What’s driving the move to downsizing?
- How prefab construction is revolutionizing the construction industry.
- Why going smaller doesn’t mean trading down.
MATERIALS
Materials prices continue to trend upwards, with prices expected to remain high at least through Q1.
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