Commentary

Basel III, a global standard that significantly increases the amount of capital and liquidity that lending institutions must maintain to support their operations, is likely to make trade finance less available and more costly in the foreseeable future.

Amid rampant globalization and the never-ending pursuit of low-cost labor, supply chain ecosystems have become elongated, complicated and frustrated with challenges arising from velocity, volatility and vulnerability.

Two trends that will undoubtedly impact shippers in 2013 will be the rising costs of moving product and the need to improve efficiencies to control costs.

The economic volatility of 2012 continues to affect cargo business around the world. Undoubtedly, this uncertainty will place added pressure on our carrier partners and all logistics operators including terminal, truck, rail, forwarders and integrators. We will need to work collaboratively together to generate better performance and network optimization.

While we wish there were only two challenges ahead, we prefer to separate the challenges in three silos: capacity supply side, cargo demand and operating cost.