The container shortage crisis has been a problem for Indian exporters and importers, given the COVID-19 induced supply disruptions and consumption trends. In an interview to CNBC-TV18, Ajay Sahai, Director General and CEO of Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) and Sunil K Vaswani, Executive Director (ED) of Container Shipping Lines Association discussed about the current situation, when would trade normalise and how the crisis has impacted trade and businesses as major economies recover.

First-up, Vaswani said that the availability of containers is not a major issue right now.

"The situation is not the same as it was a couple of months ago; in fact, it improved much more. We are practically close to getting normal. We are not normal as yet. Also, to our advantage is that the imports have increased and to bridge the gap between import and export we have been repositioning empty containers," he explained.

However, Sahai said that specific ports were witnessing an acute shortage of containers.

"I agree that situation has eased out compared to past three-four months as we are now unlocking, and with the manufacturing sector is coming on with full force, exports are picking up. Therefore, we are looking into resolving the problem because at the end of the day the container challenge is definitely plaguing our exports and had it not been the container shortage or some of the logistics challenges, Indian exports may have executed much better performance," he said.

Watch the video for more.

(Edited by : Jerome Anthony)