As Navlungo, we continue to examine the corona effects of global trade originating from Turkey. Together with our 100+ logistics partners working personally in the field, we continue to deliver accurate information and suggestions to you:

Leaving the health effects of the crisis to experts, let's touch upon its effects on the business world. Coronavirus, which was initially thought to affect only China and companies trading with China, has now caused a multi-dimensional and global crisis.

With the decision taken by the Chinese government to extend the holiday, the fact that many companies in China have still not started production caused a sudden increase in prices due to the intense demand for products in stock. Naturally, this affected both raw material and semi-finished product prices.

This situation is an opportunity for Turkish producers who produce substitute products for some goods imported from China. Turkish companies trying to seize this opportunity are receiving demands from various parts of the world at this stage and, if they have the opportunity, are trying to enter new markets on this occasion.

Right here, a problem arises that also affects us: lack of space and equipment on the vessel.

Global ship owners, who mainly use empty returns of import containers coming from China and other far Asian countries for exports, started to fail to find containers for export as the number of containers that should come from China decreased with the effects of Corona.

Currently, both in Turkey and globally, the same problem deeply affects ship owners, exporters, and freight forwarders alike. Exporters who cannot find containers/space create a virtual bottleneck by sending their business as requests to almost the entire sector in the hope of finding one. Of course, this density also affects ship owners who are or are not able to supply containers.

Ship owners most affected by this situation naturally became far eastern ship owners. These ship owners, whose container supply largely depends on Far East import containers, are currently almost unable to provide containers for export.

Naturally, the export cargos carried with these ship owners in the normal season have shifted to European ship owners who manage equipment better. In this period, how quickly these European ship owners filled their vessels in terms of tonnage / TEU is known to the entire sector.

Those who are least affected by this situation are the "short sea" service providers who do not have a far eastern service, therefore their container supply is not dependent here, and who operate more as boutiques.

Like the European ship owners I mentioned above, they are naturally trying to turn the crisis into an opportunity by collecting the rebounds of cargo drifting from global giants and far eastern ship owners.

As a freight forwarder, what we need to do is first manage our clients' expectations correctly by explaining the issue to them in a simple way. Afterwards, keeping in mind that it changes for each tradelane, we must go to the right ship owner in terms of space and equipment.

Just like clients do, forwarding every inquiry we receive to all ship owners over and over again contributes to this density and results in a loss of time for us. It is important that we avoid this situation diligently.

Kağan Kurt, Commercial Manager of Stein Freight Logistics Services, wrote this for Navlungo clients.