‘India-Pak tensions affecting trade, economic growth, fueling costs’

Reacting on the ongoing India-Pak tensions affecting global cargo trade and airline operations, Dinesh Krishnan, Southern Chairman, ACAAI Region said, “The International air freight market is nervous due to uncertainty of how the issue will pan out in the short and medium term. The trade is just recovering from the USA tariff induced supply chain shock and now this issue is adding to the uncertainties. Uncertainty in the markets on supplies and timely export of final products are a major hindrance to Exim trade. Due to interlinking of supply chain and transport corridor, blockade to sea, air and land routes creates vulnerability in the logistics pipeline distorting production and shipments dispatch schedules across the Exim trade. Longer flight time translated to higher air freight costs for the trade. This is a wasteful expense of fuel burning in the air to take alternative routes and a drag on economic development of both the countries. Many of the inputs used for Indian export & domestic consumption are sourced from across the border with Pakistan, coming from west Asia, Afghanistan & beyond, these goods are routing is now impacted. EXIM Sectors in Agriculture produces, Chemical, Pharma, Equipment’s and general cargoes are impacted due to the current embargo on trade between the 2 countries. Forwarders do not have a short-term solution, we are all waiting to see how this will go and then formalise medium and long terms alternative routing and logistics to help our EXIM customers navigate this crisis.”