Due to the container crisis, Colombians could have trouble finding some Christmas gifts such as toys, liquors.
Bavaria, Colombia’s main brewery, warned this Monday that there is a temporary shortage of some of its products in various areas of the country due to various factors, among which it cited the container crisis in the international market and the protests in May and June against government.
“We understand the inconvenience that this situation can cause. During the last weeks we have worked to minimize the impact on all our customers and consumers, and particularly in the neighborhood stores, ”explained Bavaria’s vice president of sales, Fabián Suárez, quoted in a company statement.
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He added that the company thanks “shopkeepers, distributors and consumers for their commitment and understanding at this time” which, he stressed, “is transitory.”
In the statement, the brewery blamed the shortage on “a crisis in the supply of products, generated by barriers to the timely availability of raw materials and containers for transport” and the “national strike”, despite the fact that it ended six months ago .
To these factors the company added those of “the characteristic seasonality of beer consumption at Christmas and the end of the year and the high growth in demand in 2021.”
Precisely before this last point, Bavaria points out that this year it made investments of more than 80 million dollars to expand its production capacity in the breweries of the municipalities of Tocancipá, in the department of Cundinamarca, and Tibasosa, in Boyacá.
“Our entire team is visiting the different points of sale to see first-hand the situation and distribute our products in the best possible way,” added Bavaria.
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Due to the container crisis, Colombians may have trouble finding some Christmas gifts such as toys, spirits, electronic products and household appliances, but what they are going to feel above all is an increase in prices, according to experts.
A container that was usually brought from China at a cost of 2,200 dollars, today is worth between 20,000 and 22,000.
“The costs have multiplied by ten and that is not going to be assumed by the seller,” Javier Díaz, president of the National Association of Exporters of Colombia (Analdex), told EFE.
For the expert, solving the problem in Latin America may take even longer than the rest of the world: “we are barely 4% of the shipping companies’ business, we are not a priority.”
“At least throughout 2022 we are going to have this complicated logistics and high costs,” he warned. (I)
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