Released on: March 7, 2008, 8:16 pm

Press Release Author: Bharat Book Bureau

Industry: Transportation & Logistics

Press Release Summary: This special research paper provides a detailed analysis of
the serious capacity and service issues confronting the Transpacific container
trade, and evaluates each of the key factors which will shape the development of the
Suez route as a new and important piece of the Transpacific service jigsaw puzzle.


Press Release Body: Bharatbook.com announces a new market research report "Asia -
ECNA via Suez: A New Solution for the Transpacific Supply Chain"
(http://www.bharatbook.com/detail.asp?id=15085)

This special research paper provides a detailed analysis of the serious capacity and
service issues confronting the Transpacific container trade, and evaluates each of
the key factors which will shape the development of the Suez route as a new and
important piece of the Transpacific service jigsaw puzzle.

The Suez route will become an important factor in the Transpacific container trade
and market participants - carriers, ports, rail-roads and cargo interests - can
fast-track themselves into a position of greater understanding and readiness by
acquiring this original and unique piece of research.

Product Description

Time for new strategies to beat the Transpacific supply chain crisis

Container trade has always looked to move via the cheapest and/or fastest routes,
and carriers, exporters, importers and (unknowingly) consumers have all assumed that
these established cargo pipelines would continue to accommodate whatever traffic
volume was thrown at them. But in 2004, infrastructure constraints seriously
impacted on world container trade, when the major ports ports of Southern California
experienced severe peak-season congestion in the face of a second successive year of
record global container traffic growth. Possibly for the first time in the modern
era, and certainly for the first time in the developed OECD nations, the physical
infrastructure needed to discharge containerships and distribute the cargo inland
was found wanting.

Given the great shift of productive capacity away from the Western nations and into
Asia, and the consequent sustained rise in cargo volumes, especially on the
Transpacific route, the global economy had become totally dependent upon a seamless
and efficient supply chain that had the ready availability of container transport
capacity at its heart. Congested terminals, vessels queueing for days to get on the
berths and a breakdown in the certainty of intermodal performance suddenly
highlighted the fragility of the low inventory, just in time, outsourced production
model.

Suddenly, it was no longer the fastest or cheapest supply chain which seemed the
ideal. In an imperfectly functioning distribution world, reliability and
predictability became equally important requirements - at least for part of an
importer's cargo flow - so as to ensure continuity of product supply.

In the Transpacific trade, the response of carriers and importers was twofold -
first to shift capacity and cargo to the PNW and Oakland gateways to avoid terminal
congestion in Los Angeles/Long Beach; then to shift capacity and cargo to the US
East Coast ports through greater use of Panama all-water services to avoid the
congestion in the trans-continental railroad network; and then to improve
productivity of the existing infrastructure to increase capacity.

But while such solutions have brought a period of respite and allowed the cargo to
flow once more (2005 was congestion free and 2006 should follow), it couldn't hide
the fact that the congestion beating strategies were themselves likely to encounter
capacity constraints sooner rather than later - whether at the Panama Canal, or at
US west coast ports, or in the intermodal network. In reality it became ever clearer
that the Transpacific trade was trying to force an ever growing volume of cargo
through a relatively static supply of infrastructure.

Suez - a 21st century Transpacific routeing

The fact that the world is round has given carriers the idea that the Suez routeing
might be another safety valve for the Transpacific trade. Despite brief excitement
at the possibility of Suez routes from SE Asia to ECNA in the early 1990s, the
concept has failed to convince carriers that it was a cost effective possibility -
and as the cargo source in Asia has concentrated evermore in China, and down-rated
the significance of the SE Asian market, the idea has almost disappeared from the
schedules.

But with the powerful strategic need for carriers and North American importers to
develop long term alternatives to a seemingly inevitable recurrence of the
congestion disruption of 2004, there is a clear need to make the Suez route work.
And indeed now the factors which have previously prevented the concept from playing
anything more than a bit part in the Transpacific container trade are all coming
together.

The Report looks at all these issues and shows how the commercial and operational
drawbacks that once characterised the Suez route have either already become a source
of advantage for the route, or will reach that status within the next couple of
years. Already in 2006, Maersk Line has inaugurated a new Suez string from SE Asia,
and more carriers are known to be looking closely at the idea. But the true
breakthrough for the Suez route on the Transpacific trade will be when the economics
of extending these services to the enormous southern China market become convincing.
analysis suggests that the moment has already arrived, and that carriers and
importers should be positioning themselves now to participate in the nerw
opportunities which are presenting themselves.

This new Special Report provides a detailed analysis of the serious capacity and
service issues confronting the Transpacific container trade, and evaluates each of
the key factors which will shape the development of the Suez route as a new and
important piece of the Transpacific service jigsaw puzzle.

The Suez route will become an important factor in the Transpacific container trade
and market participants - carriers, ports, rail-roads and cargo interests - can
fast-track themselves into a position of greater understanding and readiness by
acquiring this original and unique piece of research.

For more information kindly visit : http://www.bharatbook.com/detail.asp?id=15085

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