Container shortage hits businesses in east hard

Container shortage is taking a heavy toll on exporters in eastern coast as they have to move goods by road to Mumbai or Kochi for shipping the goods to the final destination, the Times of India has reported.

The news report quoted an exporter in Kolkata, Patton International, as saying that this peculiar situation is despite having a port in the city.

A shortage of containers is felt across the world amid an increase in freight after reopening of economies, according to the report. But the problem looks acute in the east.

Cost of transporting container at Rs 1 lakh

The crisis is reflected in container traffic figures. According to the latest figures from the Indian Ports Association, container traffic at Kolkata remained 18% lower in April-October than in 2019, said the report, adding that during the same time the national average for all ports increased by more than 8%. Haldia Docks came close to surpassing the pre-pandemic level.

When the container crisis began, shipping lines began to remove empty containers from the port in order to meet demand in other destinations. But intervention of port authorities has eased the situation a bit.

Businesses are hoping that the problem will be resolved fast; they have to incur additional expenses due to the container crisis.

The newspaper quoted a tea exporter as saying that the cost of transport per container is roughly Rs 1 lakh, with additional costs like storing, loading, and unloading amounting to another Rs 30,000-40,000.

Mahesh Keyal, a ferro alloy exporter, is quoted as saying that shipping a container from Kolkata to Chittagong now costs $1,400-1,500, more than three times the pre-pandemic rates. Similarly, shipping a container to CIS countries can cost approximately $11,000, compared to $5,500-6,000 in June, according to the tea exporter.

Worse, only a few shipping lines are willing to ship to these nations, leaving Indian exporters at a disadvantage to competitors in Sri Lanka and Kenya.