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Exporters hail FIEO’s initiative to launch portal to address container shortage
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Laxmi Yadav, Mumbai
September 29 , 2021
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The pharmaceutical exporters in the country have hailed the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO)’s initiative to develop an ‘ease of logistics' portal to address the container shortage.
The drug exporters have been plagued by scarcity of empty containers and exorbitant rise in air and sea freight rates since the pandemic broke out. This has not only hit exports from Indian ports, but also affected the import of other countries where the buyers are not able to meet the total cost.
Realizing the challenges faced by exporters due to acute shortage of containers, FIEO has taken a lead and developed the portal bringing exporters and logistics service providers (LSPs) together on a single platform for better price discovery. The portal (www.easeoflogistics.com) was inaugurated by Piyush Goyal, Union minister of commerce and industry recently.
The portal will address the container shortage by forecasting the demand for containers. Exporters can post details of their container requirements directly to service providers for providing their best quotes, enabling exporters to chat, negotiate and finalize business, said Dr A Sakthivel, president, FIEO.
The portal is a win-win situation both for exporters and service providers. It offers a value proposition to all stakeholders with live updates on container availability, said Sakthivel.
With wider visibility of demand, there will be better price discovery for exporters and their container fulfillment probability shall improve through this portal, said president of FIEO.
On the other hand, with advance visibility of demands, the logistics service providers shall be in a better position to do equipment planning and container repositioning besides getting access to demands of pan India exporters giving them wider business outreach, he said.
Welcoming the FIEO’s move, Sandeep Modi, secretary, Federation of Pharmaceuticals and Allied Product Merchant Exporters (FPME), said “It is a welcome step to make the system transparent but need to take more solid steps like freight rationalization scheme where free on board (FOB) price is below US$ 10,000.”
Modi thanked the commerce minister for release of Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS) pending claims hereby addressing liquidity constraints faced by exporters.
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