<\/p>\n
While some of the revenue is gone for good, a trade rebound could put the sector back into calmer waters later this year, International Chamber of\u00a0Shipping\u00a0(ICS) Secretary General Guy Platten told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The ICS is the main trade association for merchant shipowners and operators, representing more than 80% of the world\u2019s merchant fleet.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Platten called the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus \u201chugely disruptive\u201d for the\u00a0shipping\u00a0sector, triggering a massive decrease of raw material imports in economic powerhouse China because factories had stopped and are only starting to recover.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the finished goods side of it you\u2019ve got empty containers for example in China and you\u2019ve got a shortage of containers in the (United) States because the manufactured goods are not getting out of China and being transported round the world. It\u2019s affecting all the supply chain throughout theshipping\u00a0industry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It was hard to estimate the overall cost to the sector, he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cAll we know is that there has been an absolute plunge in rates for various classes of ship \u2026 We know that container lines are doing empty sailings. It would be hundreds of hundreds of millions of dollars (that) would be in jeopardy now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the tanker sector we know that rates have fallen by over 80% just in that one area alone,\u201d Platten added.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shipping\u00a0giant Maersk warned last week the virus outbreak would hit its earnings this year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Platten was in Geneva to meet World Health Organization officials leading the international response to the outbreak that has infected around 80,000 people and killed more than 2,700, mostly in China.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
He said cruise lines were acting responsibly, citing their medical teams on board and awareness of how to handle infectious diseases.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Separately, the German shipowners\u2019 association VDR told its annual news conference in Hamburg that terminal operations in Chinese ports were not going smoothly because truck drivers and port workers were missing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Container ships\u2019 round trips through Chinese ports were being increasingly canceled because of low load levels. Shipowners have asked staff to stay on board and wear face masks, VDR said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Crews were not being swapped in China, and ships were not receiving and loading food during Chinese port stays, it added. (Additonal reporting by Jan Schwartz in Hamburg; Editing by Mark Potter)<\/p>\n
gCaptain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While some of the revenue is gone for good, a trade rebound could put the sector back into calmer waters later this year, International Chamber of\u00a0Shipping\u00a0(ICS) Secretary General Guy Platten told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. The ICS is the main trade association for merchant shipowners and operators, representing more than 80% of the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5267,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[2055,1820,62,897,2056,1913],"class_list":["post-5266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marine-world","tag-plunge","tag-rates","tag-shipping","tag-tanker","tag-torpedoes","tag-virus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/5267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}