Shipping Lines delaying booking confirmations
However new Egyptian Citrus season has started from 28th of November 2013 , all shipping lines wasn’t able to confirm any loadings at November till first week of December in order to change the Ocean Freights and setting the new schedules according to the level of demands from Egyptian Exporters and shippers .. That delay make our loading schedule moved to be started after 1st of December 2013.
Ocean Freight Rates updates
Concerning to new season ocean freight rates, it’s important to know that Maersk Line is the most important controlling Carrier in the market of Shipping who makes other Shipping lines following his updates on rates like what happened last season of Egyptian Citrus when Maersk had announced about new GRI ( General Rate Increase ) between 500$ – 1000$ which had applied on all shipments to European and Asian ports which affected directly on Selling Prices of Egyptian Oranges
Situation has repeated by current season when Maersk Line has announced and confirmed on increasing of all rates from / to Asian Ports with 500$.. When asking about the reason, their answer is to recover losses of last year from dropping on turnover levels!!!!! ..
Trucking and Logistics
From other side, internal trucking and logistics has faced a lot of problems and delay at Port Said East due to closing of El SALAM Bridge by the Egyptian Army forces with a way to secure Swiss Canal from any unexpected Terrorist attacks on the crossing vessels so all transportation from and to Port Gate became by Ferryboat which doesn’t have the ability to handle more than one 40 feat container while its too low for the number of loading containers in all Egypt ..
Alternative option of Shipping ports
However Port Said East is the most common Gate to Fareast and European Destination , most of Shippers has moved to other ports of Damietta and Alexandria Ports beside Ain Sokhna Port ( under Control of International Dubai Company ) which only serving Gulf and Asian Ports while the capacity of these Ports is not much as Port Said East Yard and will make a big problem of having spaces and availability of Empty Equipments ..
Results of passing first week of New Citrus Season,
According to last updates from shipping lines and our team in Egyptian Ports that most required and shipment’s destinations was to east Europe ports ( Russia and Ukraine ) which carried over than 500 containers of Fresh Navel Orange and Fresh Eureka ( Adalia Lemon ) who asking for Big Sizes and calibers while Fareast ports ( Port Kelang , Singapore , Nhava Sheva and Chennai Ports ) had came in the second level who takes the small sizes and calibers while West Europe was in last level due to the current dropping situation of European market beside the big competition with Spanish Navelina Orange prices and reputation in the European Market ..
Fruit Link challenging shipping problems
After several incidents of political unrest in Egypt over the last few years, the countries fresh produce exporters are worried about future instability. While past events, and the possibility of further unrest in the future, has already affected the way he does business, and also been harder to bring in new customers because of the distrust many buyers have about future unrest in Egypt.
Hence , Working under current pressure of political situation worries , loading and shipping delays is not easy to follow our customers’ expectations about Fruit Link BUT Based on our long experienced and trained team work that handle the shipments smoothly fast, and commit with high performance with all packing, sorting, loading and shipping.
All of these factors lead to made us able to have alternative options to face the current situations by pushing our agents and forwards with their full power to avoid any problem could happened during trucking , stuffing and loading till delivering the goods as fast as we can to our customers ..
In cooperation between our shipping team ,sales team and packing team, they have achieved a great progress during the first week of New Citrus Season by pledging with our customers program , quality , packing and loading dates according to available vessels while handling the internal trucking was the hardest part because of Check points and securing armies along the local road from packing house till most of Egyptian Sea ports …
We’re Hopeful , looking and planning for the best to our customers