The drought that has been lasting for months due to the El Niño climate phenomenon continues to limit transit capacity in the Panama Canal with a further impact on global foreign trade already in crisis due to Houthi attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea.
According to the estimates of the Canal Authority (ACP) where 40% of the world's containers transit, if the climatic conditions do not improve the risk is that of having to further reduce the daily transit up to a minimum of 18 ships against the 24 currently and 32 in 2023 with losses estimated between 500 and 700 million dollars in 2024.
Transit restrictions, experts warn, are having a direct impact on shipping costs and consequently on global commodity prices and inflation particularly in the United States, where 40% of container traffic passing through the United States is directed. Channel.
While companies look for alternatives and face increasingly higher expenses - as in the case of the Danish giant Maersk which in January was forced to build a "land bridge" - the climate and water crisis, experts point out, no longer even appears as a isolated issue, but part of a series of challenges facing global trade, including geopolitical tensions in the Middle East.
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