News & Insights

The circulation of container equipment and vessel schedule reliability continues to be a struggle, with our own analysis confirming that transit times from key origins increased by an average of 14 days and while some improvements have been made, we expect these to be undermined by the Yantian an... Read more

Metro continues to actively support the development and adoption of emerging technology, across the shipping industry, by participating in the successful testing of new e-FIATA Bill of Lading (eFBL) standard, with FIATA , the trade association for 40,000 freight forwarding and logistics firms in ... Read more

Just two weeks since the Ningbo-Zhoushan containers terminal closed after a worker tested positive for COVID-19 and container port congestion has spread across China and many other regions. Data from consultancy eeSea highlights how global container port congestion has grown over the past... Read more

Ningbo Meidong Container Terminal will open tomorrow, having suspended all operations early last Wednesday morning after a port worker tested positive for COVID-19. Local sources now advise that the Meishan Island container terminal will restart operations from 18th August. Despite the Ningbo ... Read more

Focus Friday is our team’s day to take a deep breath and concentrate - free from internal distractions to focus further on you – our invaluable customers! We all get frustrated when we cannot clear the big jobs because little tasks, interruptions, calls and meetings suck up all our time, a... Read more

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has identified eight points of resilience to help manufacturers and trading companies prepare for supply chain disruptions. The qualities of the most resilient supply chains are based on a survey of 400 senior supply chain executives and representatives from gove... Read more

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) announced last week that the Customs Declaration Service (CDS), a system integrated with our market-leading technology, will serve as the UK’s single customs platform from 31st March 2023. Operating since 1994, HMRC is finally retiring its Customs Handling of Im... Read more

In an effort to protect supply chains and essential services the government released a list of sectors where fully vaccinated workers may be exempt from isolation if they are told to quarantine after coming into close contact with a positive COVID-19 case. Many of these are within the supply chai... Read more

The delta variant has broken through virus defences across the Indian Subcontinent and the whole of Asia and reached nearly half of China’s 32 provinces in just two weeks, threatening more supply chain disruption. Developments are raising the threat of delays at ports and airports as authori... Read more

Container carriers are injecting additional capacity into the critical Asia-North Europe trade as they prepare for a strong and prolonged peak season and elevated rates. With the massive consumer and inventory demand continuing, carriers are transferring capacity from other trades and deployin... Read more

As a service business, exceeding customer expectations is a critical success factor for us and gathering regular feedback from you provides the insights we need to drive future decisions and maintain a truly customer orientated business. Quality, efficiency, service, creative solutions and rel... Read more

The record-breaking sea freight rates, driven by restricted volumes, equipment availability and service disruption is pushing increasing quantities of ‘distressed’ ocean cargo to air freight solutions. Metro have advised and updated regularly on the dynamic air freight market, which has re... Read more