A flutter of wings in Beijing can also be felt in Paris. Where it becomes a tsunami. This statement is all the more valid if referred to the market of customisable products, notoriously characterised by a very long supply chain, where the manufacturer is almost always located on the other side of the planet, especially in China, compared to importers, distributors, retailers and final customers, located in the West. The weak link in such an intercontinental chain is the movement of goods; this was seen last March with the blockage of supplies caused by the container ship Ever Given, which ran aground for 6 days in the Suez Canal. This was demonstrated by the pandemic, during the peak of which (in the first half of 2020) thousands and thousands of containers piled up at one end of the chain, i.e. in Chinese terminals, while in the major European port hubs, the docks became home to entire fleets of empty ships with no goods to transport. Then, when the men and products started moving again, the growth in demand was not matched by an adequate supply of ships and containers, with the resulting slowdowns (as of September 2021, only 35% of containers arrived on time, compared to 85% recorded in 2019) and price increases, often staggering, up to over 60% in some cases.

This economic situation has a particular impact on the promotional sector, which is closely linked to the toys sector, where importers and retailers have to work hard to avoid having empty warehouses at Christmas.  The reason why ship logistics has not kept pace with the foreseeable increase in demand is partly due to the fact that several shipowners decided in 2020 to take advantage of the forced pause due to Covid-19 to plan extraordinary ship maintenance. There are also rumours among shippers that shipping companies have been "colluding" to raise prices in order to recoup their losses due to the reduction in volumes handled. This has had an ironic effect: for example, the price of transporting a box containing steel has risen to such an extent that it costs the same as the goods themselves.

Making the situation even more complicated is the fact that demand from Western importers and customers is for both finished products and raw materials. The prices of raw materials in particular, have recently been soaring and fluctuating, which could undermine the import mechanism as goods often become more expensive on their way to Europe than when they left the People's Republic of China's ports. Which incidentally, has been hoarding commodities (cellulose, to name just one) and other strategic reserves, its economy having recovered ahead of other countries still smarting from the pandemic. A complex but largely predictable scenario: Daniele Tirelli, lecturer in International Economics at the University of Modena-Reggio, observes: "China is a country that obviously seeks out what it needs to produce, what the western world then imports. It is therefore not surprising that aluminium has risen by 50% and copper is about to hit all-time highs, reflecting the general trend whereby the prices of strategic raw materials, from molybdenum to oil, from ferrite to canola, are jumping".

Besides wishing for a balance between supply and demand to be restored as soon as possible, can we find, or at least think about, alternative solutions? Some industrial companies have long since abandoned the global for the local, rediscovering the made in Italy and traditional manufacturing districts, halfway between the clever strategic move to drastically shorten the supply chain and a genuine concern for the local area and issues of social and environmental sustainability. On the subject of ecology, it should be remembered that the mode of movement of goods with the lowest CO2 footprint is by rail (according to Eurostat 2017, in Italy 86.5% of goods travelled by road76.4% in Europe), moreover twice as fast as by sea and less expensive than by air. Considering a very recent survey by Open Text (link www.opentext.com), according to which 93% of Italians surveyed prefer to buy from companies able to demonstrate that they have implemented ethical procurement strategies, i.e. attentive to the issues of environmental sustainability and social responsibility, the China-Italy freight train could be much more than just a working hypothesis in the future. Combating the problems linked to the shortage of raw materials requires a real change of paradigm (the attitude of politicians and the new generations will be crucial in this respect) to steer production increasingly towards circular economy protocols. Italy, which has always been forced to make a virtue out of necessity due to the shortage of raw materials and is not by chance the EU champion of virtuosity in waste recycling, could play an important role in this battle to exploit "secondary raw materials". Finally, it would be desirable to make insurance companies more aware of the problems that afflict transoceanic chains: the cargo policies currently available cover the possibility of losses caused by accidents and natural disasters, but do not include compensation for other imponderables in the supply chain and logistics typical of this period of emergency. Such a guarantee is certainly one of the wishes of the entire industry and could help to ensure that future orders are dealt with more calmly.