The famous crisis has been brewing since March 2020, when the world economy slowed down with the onset of the pandemic, generating serious complications, including the lack of container movement due to the blockade and restrictions in ports, staff cuts, reduction of ships and the closure of logistics agencies.
This, coupled with the extraordinary increase in commercial activities in China due to the high demand for items via e-commerce, the crisis became uncontrollable, and collided head-on with the immobility of empty containers, thus raising freight prices.
According to the International Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations, the shortage has caused the cost of using 40-foot containers from China to Latin America, for example, to have increased by up to 400%, and according to the projections, this sudden increase will not diminish in the remainder of the year.
Currently and after months of crisis worldwide, many companies are trying to make their logistics strategy more efficient, managing merchandise consolidation schemes, that is, generating points of concentration of goods to avoid leaving empty containers, thus reducing the level of logistics needs and simplifying the transfer, still causing delays with millionaire losses, so other companies have chosen to invest in new locations close to the final consumer and significantly improve their response capacity.
It is then that a country like Mexico can take advantage of this window of opportunity by offering to various markets, such as the United States, production, supply stores and regional mobilization, which would undoubtedly minimize the impact of the current logistics crisis and its dependence on Asian products.
It is precisely at this point that the capacity and attributes of the Mexican manufacturing sector stand out, and where the industrial real estate sector has gained with the increase of a greater number of interested companies in our country.
The vision that many companies have today, after surviving the logistics crisis for several months, is to diversify their supply, as well as the geolocation of their manufacturing centers, which has become an area of opportunity for Mexico, mainly for Asian companies. who are looking to settle in our country taking into account the proximity to one of its largest markets, the United States.