Shipping crisis a "spanner in works" for inflation war : FTA / APSA continue media coverage

Thursday, July 11, 2024

Freight & Trade Alliance (FTA) and Australian Peak Shippers Association (APSA) continue to lead the way with mainstream media to support our advocacy activity and importantly, to generate broader community awareness of :
  • the delays to international trade; and
  • inflationary impacts of increased freight rates and Terminal Access Charges.  
Recent coverage has included:

2 JULY 2024 : Country Radio Rural Report - Skyrocketing International Shipping Costs
2 JULY 2024 : The Land : Freight fright: Red Sea rockets and trade panic hit our ag costs 
27 JUNE 2024 : Sky News - International shipping costs fuel Australian inflation results
24 JUNE 2024 : 9 News - Freight rates contributing to the cost of living

A major breakthrough has been achieved through our collaborative approach with the Australian Financial Review in generating today's front-page article.

A special note of appreciation is extended to FTA member EES Shipping (Operations Manager, Amanda Bradfield) for giving 'real world' examples of the operational impacts.

The full article is available HERE [paywall restricted]

Extract below:
Freight and Trade Alliance director Paul Zalai said the international shipping industry was now confronting a "new normal" by diverting around the southern tip of Africa. That ongoing delay paired with chaos in Singapore would result in higher prices for Australian consumers, he warned. "It's thrown those ports out of whack, those Asian ports, particularly Singapore, which is normally extremely efficient, has had significant delays," he said. 

Increasingly unreliable arrivals from Asia and Europe are also forcing more Australian companies to store more products locally, driving up costs, Mr Zalai said. "We're seeing freight rates getting higher and higher and a lot of importers now, with the uncertainty of getting freight here on time, moving away from the 'just in time' inventories and storing more and more onshore here in Australia," he said.

"That, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, is challenging because there's limited warehousing, and again the pricing is going up."

FTA / APSA will expand this media campaign with the intent to generate a response from the federal government on matters raised by the Productivity Commission; recommending repeal of Part X of the Competition and Consumer Commission Act (protections from Australian competition law for foreign owned shipping lines in vessel sharing arrangements) and a Mandatory Code to regulate any variations to stevedore-imposed Terminal Access Charges.

Stay tuned for much more!

Paul Zalai - Director FTA / Secretariat APSA