Christmas goods that have not left Asian ports will not arrive on time in the Dominican Republic

Santo Domingo, DR

The global situation regarding container backlogs and rising freight rates will continue to affect the Dominican Republic even during Christmas.

According to the president of the National Association of Importers of the Dominican Republic, Miguel Dauhajre, this situation indicates that for Christmas goods that have not yet left the Asian ports will hardly arrive in time for the Christmas season because as soon as space is obtained in a container and the transport time, which ranges between 30 and 45 days, half of Christmas will have already passed.

“There are many delays when the containers are making transshipments because they arrive at the port of Kingston or Panama and there when they disassemble another container that brings them to the Dominican Republic, it takes 15 to 20 days because they do not give them the space on the ship that comes here,” explained Dauhajre.

The representative of the Dominican importers revealed to Listín Diario that some of them are having some delays, mainly because it is challenging to obtain spaces in the containers with reasonable prices.

He added that the shipping lines now have the modality of quoting the freight if they get the space, so in case an importer wants a guaranteed space, he must pay an excess or a premium rate that goes between US$2,500 and US$2,700 per container apart from the base price that ranges between US$14,500 and US$17,000, depending on the origin from China.

“There has been a very serious problem both at origin in China to get the space and then when transshipping in Panama or Kingston. This is going to cause a bit of a shortage for Christmas in products that everyone is used to receiving early,” lamented Dauhajre.

Logistics management

According to the president of the Asociación Nacional de Empresas e Industrias Herrera (ANEIH), Noel Ureña, there is a worldwide situation. The Dominican Republic is not going to be the exception because there are shortages. This will continue with everything that has to do with Christmas products coming from Asia, specifically from China, because there is a delay in the departure of containers.

Ureña expressed that another cause of the delay is logistics because even if goods come from other destinations, if they have components from China in the raw material or part of the assembly, this will affect the supply of materials for Christmas, the rest of the year, and the beginning of the following year 2022.

“The pandemic has not passed and everything will depend on the speed with which the large producers of raw materials in the world move and the management of the logistics chain, which is still slow as a consequence of the lack of personnel,” he said.

Action plan

The executive vice-president of the Association of Industries of the Dominican Republic (AIRD), Circe Almánzar, said that there had been delays in this sector, but there are no supply problems.

She commented that this had been achieved with the planning and cooperation among the industrialists and the fact that the different industries are helping each other supply in case of delays in receiving their raw materials.