As part of our commitment to provide you with the most up-to-date and relevant information on the logistics industry, we share our Market Update on the Latin American market.
You will find information and interesting data on the update of the state of the ports, the most important transport routes and relevant news.
We hope you'll find the following information helpful, as well as inspiring to boost your business and keep your cargo moving.
Did you know that Latin America is the most prominent export region of fresh-cut flowers in the world? Discover more about the Latin-American flower market and how Ecuador and Colombia contribute to this milestone. In the next topic of the month, we will explain how fresh flowers are transported from the farms to your house to share flowers with your loved ones.
Topic of the month
Now that Valentine’s Day has just passed, have you ever thought of where the flowers you gave or received came from? And how they were fresh, and you had the chance to have them for some days and enjoyed them in a vase at your house or work desk? Well, in this topic of the month, we will explain how flowers are being transported from the farms to the flower shop in your town.
According to the report of Colombia´s National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE), most of the flowers distributed in the world come from South America, which explains how 2021 Colombia’s flower export hit the US $5 billion during that year – coming from their previous record in 2019 with a value of export of flowers of $1.4 billion. The second largest producer in the world is the Netherlands. The World Atlas, in the section of “Global Leaders in Cut Flowers Exports,” explains how Colombia occupies around 15% of the global market share in the cut flower export sector, the majority of them exported to the United States.
Flowers and Logistics world
The logistics world is complex and add up the short lifetime and the care flowers require to have them fresh and blooming for your customers and their loved ones. For years, Colombia and Ecuador have been exporting their flowers to North America and Europe, mainly by the ocean, but also airfreight is an option. In 2022 the airport of Miami reported an increase in the import of perishable products, with flowers being one of the top ten products landed in the southern airport of the United States. Either transported by ocean or air, they go to a cold storage facility and then trucked to the U.S or European markets.
Ocean and Air have always been alternatives for flower producers to export their products. According to the Colombian Association of Flower Exporters (Asocoflores) and ProColombia, during the pandemic, the demand for flowers from Colombia increased. Their common destinations were the United States, Spain, Russia, Poland, and Japan.
In 2019, Ocean transportation was an alternative to air to support the Colombian growers, providing controlled atmosphere reefer (refrigerated) containers providing an ideal environment for flowers, with an unbroken end-to-end cold chain from the farm to their final destination.
Important to mention that either by air or by sea, the flower packaging is not based on the transportation mode, so exporters do not have to break up their minds making two different packaging depending on the transportation. They both use ventilated boxes that carefully store the blooms.
When flowers are transported long distances, it is always essential to keep them at a controlled temperature and atmosphere, reducing the oxygen level and increasing the carbon dioxide. Nowadays, technology is an important part of the process of preserving as long as possible and transporting as quickly as possible the flowers. Therefore, it is important that your logistic partner gives you the visibility and technology your products require.
Moving flowers, is not an easy task, but if you have the information at the right moment for sure can make it a little easier by relying on the information your logistics provider can bring you. Check out “How did an unbroken cold chain help Sian Flowers cross the seas?” An interesting Maersk story of how flowers are transported without any loss of quality and vase life.
Ocean updates
| Trade lane | Comments | Demand Trend |
|---|---|---|
|
Trade lane
West Coast South America to Asia
|
Comments
'Grapes seasons out of Chile and Peru are about to start. |
Demand Trend
Stable
|
|
Trade lane
East Coast South America to Asia
|
Comments
Reefer China market: 11 slaughterhouses allowed to export to Indonesia; China ends suspension of 3 Brazilian slaughterhouses. Foodstuff-related commodities have inelastic behavior, and volume is expected to be like last year´s. Retail-related ones, on the other hand, may suffer the impact of low demand, and volume will likely swing according.
|
Demand Trend
Stable
|
|
Trade lane
East Coast South America to Europe
|
Comments
Turkey earthquake - some impact is expected as their location was heavily affected. Chances are that we´ll see this volume diverting to other destinations. Foodstuff-related commodities have inelastic behavior, and volume is expected to be like last year´s. Retail-related ones, on the other hand, may suffer the impact of low demand, and volume will likely swing according.
|
Demand Trend
Stable
|
Main port status
Comments:
Key ports across our global network have significantly improve on waiting time, as consequence of weather improvement and less cargo congestion.
- In Northern Europe, situation at ports have improved with no waiting time, still facing weather disruptions however with less impact.
- In Asia, the situation is stable and waiting time has improved specially in Ningbo and Qingdao, Busan has been impacted due to weather issues. Tauranga continue severely congested, waiting time can reach up to 7 days for vessels out of window and 3 days for vessels arriving on proforma.
- In Latin America the situation related weather disruption has improved on the last weeks in the Gulf of Mexico and as per forecast should remain as is for the rest of February, Veracruz is being impacted with 2- 3 days of waiting time, weather situation in Buenos Aires has improved with no impact to the line-up.
- In North America, overall, the situation has had a significant improvement, waiting time in both, East and West coasts have reduced, Norfolk and Savannah labor situation is improving allowing better performance overall on the ports complex, Houston waiting time has significantly reduced to 1 day for US Flag vessels and 2-3 days the rest of the vessels, labor situation, productivity and yard utilization have improved. Freeport and Mobile waiting time have increased to 1 - 3 days due to high number of vessels arriving heavily delayed. For the Canadian ports, Vancouver is impacted due to the heavy winter and holiday delays having a waiting time of 10 days.
| Less than 1 Day | 1-3 Days | 4 - 7 days | More than 7 days | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Latin America
|
Less than 1 Day
SSA/ Manzanillo MX, Lazaro Cardenas, Altamira, Moin, Balboa, Manzanillo, PA, PSA, Cristobal, Cartagena, Buenaventura, Santa Marta, Turbo, Callao, Guayaquil, Valparaiso, San Antonio (Chile), San Vicente, Santos, Paranagua, Itajai, Itapoa, Paranagua, Montevideo, Buenos Aires
|
1-3 Days
Veracruz
|
4 - 7 days
|
More than 7 days
|
|
Rest of World
|
Less than 1 Day
Norfolk & Savannah (USA Flag), Charleston, Wilmington, North Charleston, Jacksonville, Port Everglades, Tampa, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Newark, Miami, Seattle, Antwerp, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, London, Hamburg, Shangai, Chiwan, Qingdao, Ningbo, Singapore, Malaysia, Xiamen
|
1-3 Days
Montreal, Halifax, Baltimore, New Orleans, Oakland, Norfolk & Savannah (no USA flag vessels), Freeport, Mobile, Houston, Prince Rupert, Busan, Auckland, Napier
|
4 - 7 days
|
More than 7 days
Tauranga, Vancouver (*)
|
(*) - cargo connections can be impacted considering the delays reported
Landside updates
Caribbean
In the Caribbean area, we have relaunched our Crossborder Service to Central America and from All our countries. we can offer services from Panamá and Costa Rica to Central America and vice-versa. We have the capacity to depart all days of the week and the capability to move on two axles and three axles. This service can be provided for Full container Load and Full Truck Load. In the Caribbean area, we are expanding our horizons and facing new challenges, so we are pleased to confirm that the Colombia-Venezuela and Colombia-Ecuador routes are already enabled for import and export by inland transportation.
In Colombia, we are still working hard to strengthen Service Door products, which have more and more acceptance and interest from our customers. We want our customers to be less concerned about documental and controlling processes and also can save costs in the process. Ask for Service Door Service.
East Coast South America
Rail transport operation with invoice exchange, loose cargo storage, and delivery in Sider Truck
In order to expand our operations and add value to the customers' logistics chain, we have developed a Landside Transportation product that includes a series of services and transport that can be offered to the market, as follows:
- Container railroad transport: from Santos Brasil to Contrail's terminal in Jundiaí;
- Container road transport: to customer's plant/factory for invoice exchange and return of the container to Contrail's terminal in Jundiaí;
- Cargo management: container unloading, loose cargo storage in separate lots and a covered area;
- Cross docking of cargo to a container or Sider Truck;
- Container road transport to Customer´s final delivery location through a container or Sider Truck;
Currently, we already have customers using this model, especially those who have factories with limited storage space. In addition, negotiated free times (both loose cargo and containers), the reduced cost of transport (by including a rail leg), and the reduction in CO2 emissions are additional benefits to the operation.
Maersk Terminal in Camaçari
The Maersk Camaçari Terminal was inaugurated last month and is located 46km from the port of Salvador. It has a railway network that connects the states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo, and Rio de Janeiro, offering the possibility of logistical connections between the Northeast and Southeast regions of our country. With a static storage capacity of 350 TEUs,
Air updates
West Coast South America: The resume of passenger planes with cargo option (PAX) provided more capacity, and the low perishable season countrywide has lowered the demand.
Caribbean: Rates continue to decrease as demand remains low and capacity is sufficient; fuel surcharges fluctuate, and oil prices are to be closely monitored. Regarding Colombia's export operations, rates will continue to be high, airlines charging additional fees and capacity is limited due to the last weeks for Valentine's Day seasonality, expected to finish by Week 7.
Highlights
Have you ever visited the capital of fashion in Colombia?
This year we had the opportunity to go to Medellin to participate in ColombiaTex 2023, one of the most important events in the textile industry.
What is the Customer Satisfaction survey?
It is a quarterly survey sent to our customers randomly to know their opinion and comments about the service received from Maersk.
It allows us to know points of improvement to offer the best possible service. Our next survey will be open from March 6th to March 24th. If you are one of the randomly selected customers, we invite you to participate by giving us feedback!
Please reach out to us if you have further questions about solutions for your supply chain. We are here to help you!
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