Editorial

Perspective: Chicken Meat Flying Through The Window

January 27, 2022 | By Hopeton O’Connor Dennie |

Inflation is impacting negatively on the world economy. In the USA it’s at 7 percent and Canada is at 5 percent. Britain is at about 6 percent.

Chris Levy reports that transport cost from Arkansas to Canada is from 5,000 per container to now US$30,000. The minister has to look at all angles of the following issue.

Container Shortage

Ever since the pandemic there has been a shortage of containers from China and elsewhere. These containers are either being bought up to make shop fronts and houses and not being returned to the senders. Also a small percentage get damaged at sea and are not repaired.

Shortage of Truckers

There has also been a shortage of truck drivers and with requirements for vaccination before you can enter certain countries and with antivax prejudice by some truck drivers the problem gets compounded.

Raw Material

Cost of certain raw materials which are for inputs into certain products is also another obstacle to the cost of goods and certain services getting to the end user the consumer. It is a vicious cycle.

These shortages lead to inflation due to higher costs for raw material. There was also a shortage of workers in the factories in China and elsewhere which meant production was lower than normal.

Chips

The car manufacturing importers in Germany, France and other countries are held up due to even chip and semiconductor devices for certain car assembly plants for production being in short supply. We are in for a rough ride going forward.

World Bank

Things are getting back to normal, but costs are not going back down. Consumers are feeling the negative impact of the global slowdown in their respective economies. Economic recovery is slow and the world bank has lowered growth expectations to 4 to 5 percent from about 6 percent projected recently.

Personal

My daughter works in the chicken industry. Her company has expanded overseas. They should be able to weather the storm financially.

Commentary

There have been transportation issues since the pandemic. Costs have escalated many times up. This is causing goods and services to rise and inflation to go up.

Hopeton O’Connor-Dennie is a poet, elegist, author, and senior international journalist who writes for Vision newspaper.

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