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I N D U ST RY NEW S Supply chains expected to make painful recovery There are early signs of an end to the global supply chain crisis, but disruption to some industries is so severe it may take more than a year for a full recovery, according to a recent Reuters report, Worlds Damaged Supply Chains Brace for Painful Recovery. The article, published on maritime news website https://gcaptain.com, said that while the difficulties which have stunted economic recoveries and compressed corporate margins could start to be resolved by the end of the year, some of the worst-hit sectors will take longer to return to normal. Quoted in the article, Kellogg Company CEO Steve Cahillane said: Were hoping in the back half of this year, we start to see a gradual recession of the shortages, of the bottlenecks, of just the overall dislocation that is in the supply chain right now. I wouldnt think that until 2024, therell be any kind of return to a normal environment because it has been so dramatically dislocated. European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane compared the current crisis with the conditions that followed World War II, when demand rebounded rapidly, and companies had to switch from manufacturing military supplies to civilian goods. With COVID, the return of strong demand has been coupled with severe shortages of labour and the shutdown of premises because of illness and measures to contain the virus, alongside spiralling shipping costs and higher fuel prices. However, the US Institute for Supply Management (ISM)s January survey showed signs of improvements in labour and supplier delivery performance for a consecutive third month, with similar positive messages coming from Europe, The report said the overall economic picture was mixed, with the heads of shipping companies Maersk and Hapag Lloyd and some analyists predicting a return to normal operations within a year, but others highlighting that there remains much uncertainty about the timing of a recovery. It added that it would be some time before consumers would see the effects of a relaxation of supply chain pressures and they should not necessarily expect a return to pre-pandemic levels of pricing or availability. The report said its predications assumed there were no further complications of the pandemic and progress continued to be positive. Shipping trade digitisation MoU signed The Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with ship owners association BIMCO, the International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA), the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), and SWIFT. The agreement founds the Future International Trade (FIT) Alliance, focused on collaborating to standardise the digitisation of international trade. The FIT Alliance aims to raise awareness about the importance of using common and interoperable data standards and common legislative conditions across international jurisdictions and platforms. Its goal is ultimately to facilitate acceptance of a commonly adopted electronic bill of lading (eBL) by regulators, banks and insurers, and enhance transparency of communication between them, customers, and other stakeholders in international trade. Interoperability between all actors of the trade and transport industry is the key foundation to enable smooth data exchange and to streamline the end-to-end shipping process for our members, said Dr Stephane Graber, Director General of FIATA. FIATA is convinced that an industry-wide effort to establish open-source, interoperable, technology-agnostic standards is essential to make digitisation of international trade a reality. ICC Secretary General John WH Denton AO said: This will drive a sea change in companies productivity and business models, the two critical ingredients to help businesses build back better, and unleash benefits at an ecosystem level that have never before been achieved. From the beginning, DCSA has understood the importance 10 FF305 Mar_May 22 pp10-16 News.indd 10 of cross-industry collaboration to achieve the elusive goal of universal eBL, said Thomas Bagge, DCSA CEO. Container ships carry 90 per cent of the worlds goods. As such, an incredibly diverse set of stakeholders touches the B/L transactionfrom government regulators, to insurers, to shippers from every industry. To achieve widespread use of eBL, they must all be on board with adopting digital B/L standards. The agreement between DCSA and these diverse industry associations is an exciting milestone in our journey towards standardising all container shipping documentation through our eDocumentation initiative. The DCSA is a non-profit organisation representing seven major ocean carriers to digitise and standardise the container shipping industry. WWW. F I D I FOC U S . OR G 11/03/2022 16:35