SPECIAL FEATURE A WORLD OF EMERGING CHALLENGES Movers in the African and South American regions are adept at dealing with obstacles of various kinds, but ongoing global crises of shipping delays, pricing, availability and more are presenting them with a complex new set of difficulties to navigate. Andrew Mourant reports T NATHALIE JEANNEAU, AFRICA DIRECTOR AT AGS/MOBILITAS GROUP he scramble for shipping containers around the world... grappling with unnerving price hikes in the cost of raw materials... struggling to find and keep the best people for the job: whod be a mover in 2022? Transporting goods and people in a world that was shut down during the early days of COVID-19 became nigh-on impossible. Trade-wise, the world has loosened up, but the pandemics legacy has been aftershocks and obstacles. In regions such as South America and North Africa, moving companies have grown used to upheaval, whether political or prolonged fallout from the global banking crisis. Although, when it comes to COVID-19, Jerry Nazzal, president of Cairo-based family firm Express International Group (EIG) has found some of its consequences easier to manage than others. Logistics is now the core of EIGs business. Household removals were already down (before COVID) 28 FF305 Mar_May 22 pp28-37 SouthAmerica_Africa.indd 28 and continue to go down, he says. People (from abroad) arent coming any more, though Egyptian nationals are moving back from around the world. We used to get big moves BP shipments with 40-50 containers, for example. In Egypt, I think moving expats will fade out or become minimal. The raw materials price crisis has hit another arm of EIGs trade hard: making cartons. Everything has been horrible, Nazzal admits. We used to import paper for 480-600 a tonne, and now its around 1,500. We dont have any say in it. Even material produced from EIGs own recycled paper shredded; made into bales; sold to a retailer and bought back has shot up in price. The market, says Nazzal is extreme. The global shortage of containers is a further headache. Weve had a shipment of boxes ready to go to the UK and theyve been waiting a month. I cant get a container. Its a 10,000 order but I cant bill the customer, because I cant ship it. WW W. F I D I FOC U S . OR G 08/03/2022 08:04