What's happening in logistics right now? Trends and forecasts

Today's news selection is not limited directly to the logistics industry. JML Commercial Director Andrey Mironov has selected and commented on the key events taking place in the world in various spheres and directly affecting supply chains.

1. Along with the news about rate reduction, reports about slowing down of this trend and about beginning growth of shipment costs are beginning to appear (according to ATI.SU exchange data). Freight transportation volumes are down. However, the rates for international transportation are decreasing much slower or not decreasing at all. At the same time, the cost of domestic transportation continues to grow. I think that we should not expect further reduction. The reasons are simple: the owners do not want to lose the level of profit achieved in previous years. And the turnover of vehicles is slowing down, so there is a deficit.

2. Another popular trend in the news agenda is the increase in the volume of trade turnover with China. In this regard, the statements of Oleg Belozerov (Chairman of the Board of Russian Railways) that it is extremely important for Russian Railways to develop transportation by container trains in communication between Russia - China - Europe are also interesting. JML is actively working in this direction, and in real life everything is not so good. Our specialists have encountered the fact that the Chinese side does not coordinate the acceptance of increasing volumes. The existing infrastructure cannot cope with the current volumes. In this regard, we have started to increase road containerized cargo transportation to China. We deliver by road the cargoes of our customers, which the Chinese side is unable to accept by rail.

3. The collapse of digital services, cyberattacks on government websites, and the classification of government statistics. This news speaks, firstly, about the unreliability of electronic documents and any information that exists only in digital form. It is mandatory to duplicate all important documents. At any moment they may be inaccessible or even lost. Secondly, reliance on external statistics in today's environment should be cautious.

4- The economic crisis in Sri Lanka. This is a vivid example of how an entire country went bankrupt due to illiterate management and carelessness towards basic government development indicators. The pandemic has hit everyone, with the weakest suffering first. It remains to wait to see which state will be next or to be proactive, intelligently setting up internal and external work.

5. Natural disasters, natural cataclysms, fires in various points of the globe. Nature signals that the situation is developing in an unhealthy scenario, something is going wrong. This is a reason to think about it!
Logistics is part of a large world system in which everything is interconnected. Therefore, when planning work and forecasting, it is important to take into account the events taking place in different parts of the Earth.