According to foreign media reports, with the British railroad workers strike, German ports also began to take a new round of strike action.

Maersk said that, the strike affects the ports of Bremerhaven, Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven, including road, rail and sea transport.

She explained, "This strike could have been avoided if the employer had offered better pay increases."

Maersk said, "In order to minimize further disruptions to the supply chain from strike action, we will be closely monitoring developments in the ver.di union and ZDS before and during the next round of meetings, where further strike action may occur."

Ulrike Riedel, chief negotiator for ZDS, said ver.di had shown no willingness to compromise during the four rounds of negotiations and announced further strike action.

The strike comes at a critical time for Europe's port industry, where a backlog of cargoes caused under China's anti-epidemic control policy is expected to lead to a surge in European imports in the coming weeks.

At last week's TOC conference in Rotterdam, LamiaKerdjoudj Belkaid, secretary general of the Federation of European Private Port Operators (Feport), told delegates that her members do not expect congestion to ease until 2023.

The port is concerned that a return to normalcy will occur at the same time as the third quarter peak season, before the current port congestion and lack of drivers are resolved.

A lot of ships are coming into Europe, but the docks are already fully utilized," she said. We don't see congestion going away until 2023 because they are very concerned about absorbing the large number of ships coming in from Shanghai. This leads to port congestion, ships being diverted to other ports to load and unload cargo, and ultimately impedes the normal flow of cargo."

The current situation will be further exacerbated by the fact that all major European ports are currently over 90% occupied by yards and a large number of containers are now being shipped from Asia to Europe.

Delays have also continued to intensify since the 13th of this month, with more ships being stacked in front of German ports, and the number of ships waiting to berth at the ports has increased to around 60 on the 15th of this month, and will only increase now.

German container shipping company Hapag-Lloyd suspended barge services at the Port of Antwerp this month due to increased congestion at the terminals. Barge operator Contargo warned a week ago that waiting times for ships in the Port of Antwerp had increased from 33 hours at the end of May to 46 hours on June 9.

In addition, Rotterdam and Antwerp are already heavily congested. If the conflict in German ports escalates further, they will refuse to transfer any cargo for them. Germany already has 12% of its shipments trapped, and this is expected to increase in the coming days.

Mike foreign trade said to remind all foreign trade people, shipments, please pay attention to the logistics delay, forward to know ~

If this article is helpful to you, click "Watch" and forward it to support it.
If you want to learn more trade customer acquisition, order negotiation, after-sales dispute handling skills, you can add Mike WeChat consulting courses to enhance the ability to make money in foreign trade.