Mounting evidence that container crunch will persist until 2022

A widely held theory on pandemic spending is that container imports surged because Americans bought a lot more goods when COVID prevented them from buying services. Ergo, with more vaccinations and fewer hospitalizations, Americans will resume spending on services and consequently have less to spend on goods, the pandemic-induced driver of import demand will wane, spot rates will fall, and the market will return to some semblance of normality.

Read More Here Freightwaves 

 

US 2021 Retail Sales Growing at Unprecendented Rates

Earlier this month, The National Retail Federation (NRF) upwardly revised its retail sales forecast to grow between 10.5% and 13.5% in 2021.

Read More Here SupplyChain247

 

A Win for Roads, and no Tax Hikes: Infrastructure Deal Takeaways

The infrastructure agreement announced Thursday by the White House and a bipartisan group of senators carves out $579 billion of common ground from the $2.25 trillion American Jobs Plan unveiled in March by President Joe Biden.

Read More Here Supply Chain Brain

White House Releases US Critical Supply Chain Review

On February 24, President Biden signed an executive order directing his advisors to survey U.S. supply chain vulnerabilities for 100 days. Now, the administration says, the results of that research—which covered semiconductor manufacturing, large capacity batteries, critical minerals and materials, and active pharmaceutical ingredients—are in, and the Executive Branch is planning its next steps, according to a fact sheet on the report published by the White House.

Read More Here Industry Week

Humanitarian Supply Chain: Vaccine Delivery Drones for Children in Need

The terrain of the Himalayas presents big challenges in last-mile distribution

Nepal’s current average vaccine coverage hovers around 78%, and 59 out of 77 districts have not yet been fully immunized. Finding an efficient way to make vaccines more accessible by reviewing last-mile delivery is key to improving immunization coverage throughout the whole country.

Read More Here SCMR.com