Never has a crisis turned the logistics industry on its head quite like this one has. During much of the lockdown period, the international trade landscape was marred by container shortages and imbalances, port congestion, as well as low productivity due to a reduced complement of staff and equipment. Freight News asked Dr Juanita Maree, chair of the South African Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff ), to provide an overview of what happened and the lessons learned.China, the global manufacturing hub, experienced a slow return to production capacity, which caused international buyers to panic. This disrupted the existing systems. “We saw an unprecedented rise in freight rates, as the entire world scrambled to ship their goods,” explains Maree. Indeed, the initial impacts came in the form of a supply shock, as traders front-loaded purchases to snap up existing space. In a brief period, the supply shock turned into a demand shock, which created its own set of challenges. The approach was “buy early and buy often”.In simple economics, if demand rises and supply remains unchanged, the price goes up. “And did the price go up!” says Maree. “Before lockdown, the normal price for a 40ft GP container was $1 800. This shot up to $5 000 in a short space of time, with some carriers even quoting ten times as much on occasion.”The global disruption meant widespread delays were experienced, resulting in many carriers opting to bypass South African ports. Besides the global event that transpired, South Africa created some of its own challenges. By rightly focusing on the health crisis, the government inadvertently created havoc in the supply chain by drastically reducing movement in public spaces. The regulations created critical unintended consequences.At one stage, local traders could not even draw cargo that was deemed “non-essential”. In addition, truckers were not allowed to ship goods to the “intended destination” without prior, arduous approval.“Unfortunately, the trade network is highly integrated and functions as a system on its own,” says Maree. “Therefore, you cannot ask an international carrier to off load only some goods. And besides, the information of cargo rests with the owner and is therefore private. To avoid such issues going forward, we as organised business would like to work closely with government.”The effects of the disruptions impacted all modalities, as delays spilt over to the borders. Truckers had to submit results of their polymerase chain reaction test to cross borders. However, delays were widespread. With the test having to be done in labs and only valid for 72 hours, truckers for example could not test in Johannesburg because if their trucks did not cross the border within 72 hours, Feature by Liesl VenterLOCKDOWN - We saw an unprecedented rise in freight rates, as the entire world scrambled to ship their goods.– Dr Juanita Maree