An exclusive poll conducted by Ti Insight in the fourth week of June strongly suggests that most logistics and supply chain executives do not expect volumes to return to normal levels before 2021 at the earliest. The survey population was drawn from Ti’s subscriber database and covered all regions of the world.
Of the 102 respondents, the majority (60%) said that recovery would not happen this year. Almost a quarter were a little more optimistic, however, and believe that recovery would occur in the fourth quarter of 2020. Another 17% thought that volumes either had or would return to normal in the next few months.
Commenting on the findings of the survey John Manners-Bell, Ti’s CEO, said, ‘Although it is not surprising that a majority of industry executives believe full recovery will not occur this year, it is encouraging that a sizeable proportion think that volumes will return to normal levels in the next six months.’
He went on to add that this was probably due to different segments of the market being affected in different ways.
‘Demand for high tech products, such as computers, has raced ahead of last year as more people around the world have set up to work from home. Other consumer goods have received a similar boost. However, many ‘big ticket’ items – not least autos – have been hard hit, along with their associated logistics industries.’
The survey results are slightly more optimistic than the predictions of institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF. They believe that trade volumes will drop in 2020 at double-digit rates and not recover these losses until 2022 at the earliest.
‘We must hope that the levels of optimism displayed by a significant proportion of our survey respondents are borne out by the economy as a whole’, concluded Manners-Bell.
Source: Transport Intelligence
Author: Transport Intelligence
