By Aroussa Hafeez

As the markets are increasingly globalized, trade and shipping industry has also soared. Since the rise of intercontinental air travel, sea travel has become important around the world as a mean of transportation. Albeit, from the last two years COVID-19 has shaken international trade and hardly hit the global shipping industry. Since the start of pandemic, potential repercussions for international trade became obvious. People across the globe are facing immense challenges and sufferings due to the pandemic. COVID-19 has spurred a number of obstacles for global trade and shipping industry.

Shipping is the life blood of global economy. More than 50,000 merchant ships are trading internationally. The world fleet, which is registered in more than 150 nations is crewed by millions of seafarers. International shipping industry relies greatly on seafarers and India is one of the biggest provider of seafarers for the shipping industry. However, recently India has been affected the most by the coronavirus pandemic. The second wave of COVID-19 has strongly hit the country. Coronavirus cases are increasing at an alarming rate and every single day witness record high deaths and infections. India’s huge wave of coronavirus pandemic has also strongly hit the international trade and shipping industry.

Where, maritime transport is the backbone of globalized trade and 80 percent of goods trade is carried by sea but on the other hand due to the coronavirus pandemic maritime port traffic has slowed down. In the start of 2020, port ship traffic was down by more than 10 percent on the same period in 2019 and in the second half of May 2020, global port calls had fallen to less than 80 percent. UNCTAD estimates in its Review of Maritime Transport 2020 that Global maritime trade plunge by 4.1% in 2020 due to the unprecedented disruption caused by COVID-19.

India’s unprecedented surge in coronavirus cases hits the work at ports, which also cause the slowdown of global trade. Due to explosive outbreak of COVID-19, global trade and shipping industry has witnessed disruptions. Slow shipment and delays in vessels offloading create supply chain bottlenecks. In the month of May, India has 21.9 million tons of cargoes scheduled to arrive but due to the shortages of seafarers and labour many vessels could see delays in scheduled loadings and discharge. Moreover, according to the Container Availability Index (CAx) data, the equipment shortages are also causing increase in container prices at major Indian ports.

The changing circumstances of global market affects the shipping industry. Logistic chain of shipping company suffers when it does not adapt to global industry trends but now due to coronavirus pandemic, everything has slowed down and Indian shipping industry has been hit hard by the pandemic. Although, the divergent trade flow and shipping industry which has gone down during COVID-19 outbreak in India has much to do with the policies of Indian government to combat it. Drastically reducing employment in shipping industry due to surge of coronavirus pandemic has caused difficulties for seafarers in India. Total of seafarers serving on internationally trading merchant ships are estimated at 1,647,500 seafarers and according to India’s maritime administration, the Directorate General of Shipping (DGS), the number of Indian seafarers employed globally has exceeded 150,000 in 2018. According to the DGS, at the end of 2017, India had 154,349 seafarers employed on merchant ships, compared to 143,940 in 2016 but now the numbers of seafarers from India, serving on international trading merchant ships has decreased.

Recently, a number of seaports are closing their doors for thousands of seafarers to and from India. Many companies are tapping seafarers from other countries. Thousands of seafarers across India who are unable to get out of the country because of COVID-19 that sparked travel curbs and restrictions on Indian crews. Many shipping authorities have advised Indian crew not to sign off from the vessel until the COVID-19 situation improves. Earlier, the Wilhelmsen Ship Management, a crew provider said that Zhoushan in China has banned the entry of ships or crew that have visited India or Bangladesh in the past three months. Industry executives also added that many crew members coming from India are tested positive for COVID-19. Port authority of South Africa also said that a vessel arrived in Durban from India was quarantined in which 14 Filipino crew tested positive for Covid-19. Last year, almost 400,000 seafarers were stranded at sea beyond their contract length because of the pandemic.

An estimated 240,000 Indian seafarers were supposed to receive Indian-made vaccines, from May 1^st but the shortage of stock has postpone the vaccination. India is facing extreme shortages of medicines, oxygen cylinders and vaccines. It seems crucial in vaccinating the whole country. India, is one of the biggest vaccine producer but now it does not have enough doses to protect its own citizens because India has donated 8 million doses and sold almost 52 million doses to other countries.

India’s COVID-19 crisis take a bigger hit to global Shipping industry which will cause difficulties for seafarers. The Global maritime trade also lost momentum due to outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, which has drastically changed the global environment and the recovery is still uncertain. Notwithstanding the challenges experienced due to the pandemic, coordinated efforts are needed to recover from the crisis.