Impact of Pandemic on Global Logistics, Supply Chain and Consumers
SME World|December 2020
The pandemic that started early this year compelled global lockdowns for months that led to the restrictions on movement of people as well as goods to a great extent. This affected several industries across sectors and economies the world over slipped into an all-time slump. As the lockdown was gradually lifted, industries like travel and hospitality were found to be worst affected. The supply chain which suffered an unprecedented blow is slowly picking up in most countries. The effect on the global trade has been so bad that there is an expected contraction of almost 4.3% on the global GDP in 2020 as per UNCTAD. The merchandise trade has declined by almost 18% year-on-year.
Dr. Ambrish Kumar
Impact of Pandemic on Global Logistics, Supply Chain and Consumers

As most countries restricted or stopped scheduled international flights and air travel, which led to a deferred slowdown in the movement of goods. Consequently, the air freight capacity reduced drastically due to limited availability of belly capacity. The belly capacity was reduced by almost 72% globally in July 2020 as per IATA and has remained almost 50% down throughout the pandemic. This has in turn impacted the air freight, as the air cargo rates have skyrocketed almost 4-5 times of the normal. The ocean freight was also hit badly during the lockdowns as vessels were placed under quarantine for weeks before being allowed into the ports thereby slowing down the subsequent import and export processes. The shipping containers were stuck at the ports and at state borders during transit.

The disruption in the movement of the containers can still be felt with the shortage of containers at various ports. As 80% of the global trade is done by sea, the ocean trade getting affected has impacted the global economies.

The pandemic also caused a swing in the types of commodities traded across the world as the demand for the regularly traded commodities saw a new normal. Trade Movement of Medicines, pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, medical equipment mostly related to COVID-19 saw a worldwide increase, which went as high as 186% year-on-year in May 2020. There was also a huge spike in demand of electronics, gadgets, home office equipment, etc globally.

Survival at stake

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