MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Maersk forecasts 3% world trade growth; regulations a challenge in Mercosur

The Danish company wants to make the handling of a container as easy as sending a letter by mail or buying food. Photo: Reuters

The shipping company Maersk expects world trade to grow by 3% or more in 2021. The company sees global trade recovering, but there is still a lot of uncertainty about the size of the impact of Covid-19 on the world economy in 2021. So it is implementing a global strategy that positions it for growth in several countries, including Mercosur members.

“To kick-start 2021 in Brazil, Maersk began offering air-freight services in January,” says Douglas Piagentini, Commercial Director at Maersk East Coast South America. “We are building our intermodal network to transport goods by land, sea, or by air. Another area of growth is digital services for medium and small companies, an offer that has proved to be very useful during the pandemic. However, leveraging logistics in Brazil is a challenge on the regulatory front”, states Piagentini.

“Offering industry, agribusiness, or retail customers the opportunity to book containers, obtain fixed price quotes, and track goods online is part of our philosophy of simplifying, connecting, and enabling commerce for our customers. We want to make the handling of a container as easy as sending a letter by mail or buying food. To get there, we need help from regulators to reduce the bureaucracy and the number of regulatory agencies involved in shipping a container”.

In Brazil, the transport of goods by container involves compliance with the regulatory requirements of about 30 agencies. For this, Maersk invested in digital tools, such as Maersk Flow, MyFinance, and Maersk Spot. Hamburg Süd customers can use Instant, which is very similar to Maersk Spot, where they can get a fixed price for shipping goods through a container, and shipping is guaranteed.