Marine Container Paradoxes: an Attempt to Analyze the Market

Abstract

At the end of 2020, there was an unexpected shortage of containers for sending goods to the USA, European countries and Russia in the key ports of China, and due to the lack of containers shipments practically stopped in December. In the meantime, the cost of transportation has skyrocketed. The market for marine container services was experiencing such a critical situation for the first time since the existence of this type of transportation. But was the COVID-19 pandemic the only cause or was it a combination of various circumstances? In the article, the author tried to understand the nature of this state of affairs, and also offers his own vision of the further development of events.