The UK and Germany have been named as the two European countries that ship the most parcels. That’s according to figures in the Pitney Bowes Shipping Index, Global Trade Mag reported.
It revealed that both the UK and Germany shipped some 3.5 billion parcels in 2019. For the UK, this represented a year-on-year increase of 12.4 per cent. It also noted that, with an average of 53 parcels shipping per capita each year, the UK has the second-highest per capita number of any country in the world.
The news provider also revealed that the UK and Germany are a long way ahead of their European neighbours. With 1.3 billion parcels shipped in 2019, France was in third place in the list, followed by Italy at less than one billion.
Figures from the Pitney Bowes Shipping Index also show that shipping has more than doubled in the five years from 2014.
While the UK is one of the top countries for parcel shipping in Europe, it lags behind the major players on a global stage. They are China, the US and Japan, which collectively account for 83 per cent of global traffic.
What’s more, global parcel shipping is expected to continue its strong growth, with the report predicting that volumes will double over the next six years, with some 200 billion parcels expected to be shipped each year.
However, there is one thing that’s causing issues for the global shipping industry at present - Covid-19. The outbreak of the virus, which originated in China, has seen the country’s major shipping ports come to a virtual standstill.
This is having a knock-on effect around the globe, with Post and Parcel revealing that Covid-19 is expected to lead to “complete changes in global maritime shipping patterns”. Both terminal operations and the pick-up of inbound containers to China have virtually stopped.
The slowdown is causing issues in a number of ways, including the fact that all of the reefer plugs (that support refrigerated containers) in the yards of container terminals in Shanghai, Ningbo and Tianjin/Xingang are occupied.
As a result, some operators are having to divert their reefer cargo to other ports, which is resulting in extra costs.
International courier expert Parcelhero offered some advice in the article for Post and Parcel, stressing that all freight and logistics firms should “plan for the worst and hope for the best”.
Taking steps now could help to mitigate the worst of the effects of a widespread outbreak of the Covid-19 virus.
We recently reported on figures from the Wall Street Journal, which found that the virtual shutdown in shipping to and from China is resulting in losses of up to $350 million per week for container shipping lines.
There is no way to know how long the Covid-19 outbreak will continue to affect global shipping, but if you transport goods to countries outside of the UK you need to have plans in place to move your products. Get in touch with us to find out more about shipping Baltic freight or our other freight forwarding services.
