Picture it: empty shelves in December, no Christmas gifts to be bought. While that seems grim, it's a reality for many stores in the US. And though Belize may not face such a crisis, there will be lots of stock not reaching the stores. That's because there's a shipping crisis in the US because of how full the port in LA is. Courtney Menzies took a look at the situation and has this story.
Millions of dollars' worth of supplies and commodities are currently sitting on ships outside the Los Angeles Ports with no place to berth. On top of that, the ports are gridlocked with containers that must be off loaded.
It has caused a major shipping crisis in the US, which began with seemingly harmless online pandemic shopping. That then turned into a surge of goods being shipped, and not enough space to offload everything.
And that crisis trickles down to Belize, threatening the incoming Christmas stock. Now, department stores are worried that their shelves will be empty for the season of gift giving.
Last week, we brought the matter to the attention of the minister responsible for ports, Rodwell Ferguson, who said he was going to jump on the situation as soon as possible.
Hon. Rodwell Ferguson, Minister of Public Utilities, Energy, and Logistics
"It's a major concern, it's a worldwide issue because of the pandemic and I think the shipping agents around the world will have to figure out what is the way forward even if Belize can maybe start to ship by road temporarily to start to get our products out because the ships are having that major delay."
"There must have to be some provision, people know Christmas is coming up so I believe there should be a provision to be able to get our containers in before Christmas but I will follow it up tomorrow when I meet with the Ports Commissioner."
But worry not, customs broker Delroy Fairweather explained to us last week that while they are seeing a delay in containers that are shipped, basic commodities will not be missing from shelves.
Delroy Fairweather, Custom Broker, Benny's Enterprise
"I could say that I think we are pretty much on target with containers coming in this year. What we may experience is shortages in certain commodities and by shortages I mean a delay of two weeks to a month and in certain cases two or three months but for the most part, the day to day items that we are receiving that you could go on the shelves in the stores, people are having access to those."
"In regards to bigger companies that deal with a whole sale business, that is where some of the challenges come in because of that grid lock you're experiencing in Los Angeles where now you have as much as 110 vessels berthed outside the port of LA and Long Beach. The last check it was half a million containers which were sitting on 70 vessels so now I'm thinking with that 110 vessels, it's definitely climbing close to that one million mark so the issue with it is that certain commodities that the US relies on to put in these departments stores are locked up in those containers."
And while you're thinking that that's the US's problem, it will affect the cost of the items sold here in Belize because the shipping companies and the ports are charging hundreds of dollars per day for every container that they are holding onto.
Delroy Fairweather, Custom Broker, Benny's Enterprise
"Even on the wholesalers end what it's costing to get a container into Belize let's say from Asia has gone up from- and I think I said this in another interview, containers are as much as $15,000 US dollars now which normally you would have paid $4,000 US dollars so all of that has been added on to the cost of that product, and by that then it automatically drives up the cost."
"Pre pandemic, prices were normalized, and in this pandemic prices have definitely gone through the roof."
But one department store says they're not too worried and that their customers can expect full shelves this Christmas.
Ashton Usher, Supervisor, Mirab
"It hasn't affected us at all, actually we have a very amazing purchasing team, we plan ahead from January actually, so we placed our orders from ahead of time and they have been delayed but they're trickling in since July, so we've had all of our products come in and our customers expect a certain standard from us and we do everything we can, we spare no effort to fulfill that standard."
Courtney Menzies:
"So none of your containers were stuck - or are stuck - at the port in LA right now?"
Ashton Usher, Supervisor, Mirab
"We did have containers stuck but like I said our purchasing team did an amazing job, we had to do some directing, some quick thinking and like I said they spared no effort or no expense when it came to rerouting those containers to other ports to get them here into Belize so had to try some other shipping lanes to get them here into Belize."
The other stores in Belize may not be so lucky, so you might want to get your Christmas shopping done early.
Fairweather noted that the electronic gadgets are the ones in danger of not reaching in time.
