AS the U.S.-China trade dispute drags into its 16th month and continues to disrupt supply chains, more than one-quarter of multinational firms have not made contingency plans, showed a survey from a subsidiary of courier giant DHL. The survey by DHL Resilience360, a supply chain risk management software platform under Deutsche Post AG’s courier unit, included 267 anonymous responses from supply chain executives across industries including health care, automotive and consumer. Over half of respondents were from companies with annual revenue of more than 1 billion yuan (US$142 million) and most were from the United States and European Union, the survey showed. Of respondents, 48 percent from the engineering and manufacturing industry and 40 percent from the automotive mobility sector reported that they had no contingency plans at all, even though both fields have been heavily targeted by both countries in the trade war. “We’re now dealing with such a new frontier that most supply chain professionals have not encountered this before and its so new that I think a lot of people are struggling to even understand what they can do to deal with it,” said Shehrina Kamal, product director for risk monitoring at DHL Resilience360. Of those that had decided against relocating or shifting production out of China, some said they were unaffected by the trade war. But 43 percent said long-established connections with Chinese factories and suppliers as well cost and time were among reasons for staying put. Just 8 percent of respondents said they expected tariffs to eventually be removed. (SD-Agencies) |