By Richa Naidu
(Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Wednesday pushed to ease supply chain logjams that are threatening the all-important U.S. holiday shopping season.
A port in Los Angeles will join Long Beach, California, to expand around-the-clock operations, the White House said.
Consumer goods makers, delivery companies and retailers – which make most of their annual revenue in the last quarter of the year – put their weight behind the shift, meeting virtually with Biden and promising stepped-up operations.
Attendees included top executives from Walmart, Target, FedEx, UPS, Samsung and Home Depot.
WALMART
The world’s biggest retailer said it would increase its use of nighttime hours at the ports significantly and estimated that it could increase throughput by as much as 50% over the next several weeks.
“As the ports move towards 24/7 operations, that’s just going to help increase our overall effectiveness and increase the volume of merchandise that we can move through those ports and get to customers,” a spokesman said.
TARGET
Target, which moves about half its shipping containers at night, has committed to increasing that amount by 10% during the next 90 days to help ease congestion at the ports
The big-box retailer said it “fully supports investments to increase efficiency at our nation’s ports,” including expanding infrastructure and increasing data sharing across industries to help with port traffic control.
HOME DEPOT
The company said it plans to ship up to 10% additional containers per week during the newly available off-peak port hours at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
SAMSUNG
Samsung said it would ship nearly 60% more containers out of these ports by operating 24/7 through the next 90 days.
UPS
Delivery company UPS said it would increase its use of 24/7 operations and enhanced data sharing with the ports, which could allow it to move up to 20% more containers from the ports.
FEDEX
FedEx said it would combine an increase in nighttime hours with changes to trucking and rail use to increase the volume of containers it will move from the ports.
The company said the changes could double the volume of cargo it moves out of the ports at night.
(Reporting by Richa Naidu in Chicago; Editing by Heather Timmons and Lisa Shumaker)
