The dockworkers’ strike, which paralyzed the main seaports on the East Coast of the United States for three days, brought negative consequences for the Mexican ports of Altamira and Veracruz, which could impact distribution costs, reported Juan Pablo Pacheco, president of the Association. Mexican Freight Agents (Amacarga).
Although the strike has already ended, the Altamira and Veracruz ports that regularly receive a high volume of cargo are already suffering from congestion problems at the docks, delays in the delivery of goods and the risk that transportation and storage costs will increase. , explained the business leader.
Read: Artificial reef in Tamaulipas created by old ships will avoid a conflict between Mexico and the US over illegal fishing
The strike by 50,000 longshoremen at ports in the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast of the United States broke the supply chain for three days.
On October 1, ports in the United States, from Maine to Texas, closed due to a strike by the union representing some 50,000 longshoremen.
The dockers went on strike for the first time since 1977, after they were refused a 77 percent salary increase over the six-year contract.
When making an evaluation of damages and risks derived from the strike in the United States, the agent estimated that there are still some latent risks for the movement of goods, since he detected that the diversion of ships and the accumulation of containers could generate overload in the port infrastructure. and increase processing and dispatch times.
The leader of the group that brings together the country’s freight forwarders expressed his willingness to collaborate with all the actors participating in the distribution chain so that Mexico is an example of logistics collaboration.
“It is considered that with the stoppage in US ports and the increase in traffic in Mexico, it is possible that maritime transit times will be considerably lengthened, affecting the delivery times of critical merchandise.”
Lee: Port of Manzanillo has a critical jam of ships and merchandise due to poor management
Regarding logistics costs, Juan Pablo Pacheco calculated that the increase in demand from Mexican ports could lead to higher storage and handling fees, in addition to affecting the arrival times of products at their final destination.
“The key to confronting this problem will be to maintain communication with the authorities and to have a synergy between all the actors participating in the supply chain to soon help improve cargo delivery times to importers,” concluded the president of Amacarga. .
