Article - 68 Week 28 Anti-market Conferences:

Article - 68  Week 28

Anti-market Conferences:

Too big to be questioned upon. Container shipping lines are mostly giants in the industry. And when the titans take up their cudgels, there is a whole lot bleeding. This bleeding becomes pervasive and gory. The freights plummet to abysmal lows. Bottom lines are swept to the bottom of business  rationale. All that matters is 'market share' and 'market turfs'. The smaller players simply drop mortally wounded or perish. The name of the game is brute 'size' and 'scale'. When bottom lines shriek for panic attention, the giants declare cessation. They huddle behind closed doors and direct their collective violence on the consumer of their services. PSS, CBR, FAF, CAF, and many such mysterious and strange sounding missiles are fired at the end customers at tandem. The consumers shake their heads and roll their eyes. The giants shake their legs all the way to their Banks.

If these unholy behind-the-door collusions and alliances are broken, the giants would no more dare to drop rates to desperate and impossible lows. And therefore, there would be no need for such unholy alliances to spike the general freight rates. There would be stability and semblance of it among the end users. This too will invite smaller competitors to wedge themselves in to the niches. The market would slowly be a true market - not a manipulated one in the hands of the giants. It is true that the consumers benefit immensely when the titans clash. But they too get their deadly 'freight and service shocks' when the giants join hands. This is especially bad for an emerging economy like India. It's export industries experience periodic shocks on both input costs and export competitiveness.

India is basically a consuming nation for this service and would continue to be so for a long period. With the kind of shipping and taxation policies on Indian shipping, it would be impossible for a pure Indian company to raise its head among the giants. SCI can thrive on mediocrity on tax payers' money. It would face the same dilemma like Air India in the hands of conniving politicians and never grow to be a giant among giants. Therefore, this is time to declare such conferences anti-competition and anti-market by the government of India, in line with EU. 

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Brgds

Capt Rath