By Benny Lim      Photo : Mika Baumeister 

PalletTrader, designed and built exclusively for the sourcing, buying and selling of commercial wooden pallets. The company says it brings the ease, simplicity and efficiency of a common e-commerce transaction experience to what has been a fragmented world of suppliers and pallet “recyclers.” These entities have for years conducted business manually; typically by email, phone calls or fax. Bettaway funded, built and is operating PalletTrader as an independent, neutral online business platform. The service is designed to enable and streamline the digital trading and sale of pallets in a collaborative, secure e-commerce environment, providing its user community with workflows and tools to drive new efficiencies into pallet supply and management While the majority of PalletTrader’s market is expected to be what are called “white wood” pallets, the platform can accommodate all other types of pallets as well, including those made of plastic, composites or other materials. In addition to its open, public-facing transaction ability, PalletTrader allows users to set up their own private networks in a secure, permission-based environment, creating defined communities of specific customers.

The below is the feedback from China and Southeast Asia branches

Shenzhen

As we speak, we are currently in the dull season. The decreasing in need led to the price is still dropping day by day due to typhoon but it now back to normal. The unpredictable delay of ships along with the pandemic issues allow the extra cost and charge seem normal. To be fair, Yantian and Shekou ports are now easing the restrictions, like the original ETB-7 is now changed to 10 days

Dalian

In the transit aspect, for the drivers to use the highway, they will be required to provide a tested the PCR report within 48 hours. And in the import aspect, going to the loading the area, drivers also will be required to provide a tested the PCR report within 48 hours. To make things more difficult, they also need to wear a protective clothing and a surgical mask.

Qingdao

The needs for shipping didn't go up this year because of Christmas. This induced the American line rate consistently dropping and emptied the warehouse. Even with the current situation, the drivers of the shipping company are still required to provide a proof of PCR every 24 hours. Furthermore, the drivers need to use an app to make a reservation before going to the LCL warehouses, resulting from the implementation of reserve-first policy by the LCL warehouses. 

Ningbo

Starting from October 14th, Beilun district in Ningbo is in a control lockdown. Even though, the port and ship company are giving the green light to use the Green Channels and distinctive policies to ensure the flow of shipping, it's still troublesome to ship out anything duo to the lots of drivers are put into quarantine. The CFS warehouses are being under control and currently halt to ship goods. Those drivers, which are not under a quarantine, are required to do a PCR every 24 hours, and apply for health safety clearance. All of that hassles need to be done and reviewed before going to the loading area one day in advance. 

Vietnam

Vietnam's Import and Export needs to overcome many barriers at the end of the year.
Despite achieving positive results, import and export activities in the last months of the year as well as the forecast for 2023 will face some difficulties and challenges. For example, supply disruptions and high prices of input materials for production make many major economies in the world such as the US and EU forecast to face challenges and risk falling into recession. Moreover, the high inflation in markets, especially the main export markets of Vietnam, also reduces the demand for consumer goods. Meanwhile, the consumer industry is the products that Vietnam has strengths such as textiles, footwear, wooden furniture… This also directly affects the situation and export growth trend of these items in the coming time.
Vietnamese pomelo gets green light to enter US market Pomelo is the seventh fresh fruit of Vietnam to be licensed to enter the US market, following mango, longan, lychee, dragon fruit, rambutan, and star apple. The US has great demand for fruit, up to 12 million tons each year. Its domestic production has met just 70 per cent of the demand while the remaining 30 per cent, equivalent to 3.6 million tons, is imported. This creates considerable room and a great opportunity for Vietnamese fruits, including pomelo, to access the US market.
 

Thailand

Amazon Web Service (AWS), an Amazon.com, Inc.  plans to open an infrastructure Region in Thailand.  AWs plans an estimated investment of more US$ 5 billion over next 15 years. The investment would include construction of data center and purchase of goods and services from regional businesses. It also plans to set up and infrastructure up in Thailand to help customers in the region securely store data and serve end users better, AWS said. To build data center in Thailand is a significant milestone that will bring advance cloud computing services to more organizations and help Thailand deliver Thailand 4.0 ambition to create a digitized, value-based economy.  AWS' cloud platform offers more than 200 services, including storage, robotics, and artificial intelligence. “Cloud services are one of the most essential drivers of a digital economy. We welcome AWS’s plans to build a Region in Thailand, which will help advance our position as an innovation hub in Asia and a top destination for investment,” said Mr. Narit  Therdsteerasukdi, secretary general of the Thailand Board of Investment. “The AWS Asia Pacific (Bangkok) Region will help boost the country’s global competitiveness, while driving innovation and economic productivity across all industries in Thailand.”

Dallas

Shortage of chassis causing UP and BNSF to both put containers in stack/on the ground. UP does not allow swings/flips whenever you want as they do not have cranes around the clock; the only thing you can do when UP containers go into stack is to wait and wait and then pay demurrage .SSLs that arrive via UP Hutchins: Hapag, Hyundai, Evergreen, ONE BNSF will move stack containers to a separate lot and drivers can bring in their own chassis to flip SSLs that arrive via BNSF Haslet: OOCL, COSCO, CMA, MSC, Maersk Hepta Run Dallas does not service KCS Wylie ramp

Houston:

Port congestion persists. Port being too full to accept empties, causing many SSLs to redirect their equipment to other depots -- this means a lot of chassis splits. SSLs commonly with this issue: COSCO, OOCL, ONE, Hyundai

If you book MSC/ZIM, the container will probably transship repeatedly, and the vessel will sit in the Gulf of Mexico for a very long time due to lack of space at the ports.

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