TRAFFIC JAM HITS GLOBAL RECOVERY

Bottlenecks as supply chains get restarted

Canadians should be “realistic” about the POSTCOVID restart of the global economy and resulting supply chain bottlenecks, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Thursday.

The global supply chain crisis is already affecting availability of goods in stores and driving up prices, a situation that stands to continue through to the holiday season.

Bottlenecks in the global supply chain have led to congestion at ports around the world, as demand has increased while countries recover from the pandemic. On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden announced the Port of Los Angeles will move to 24-hour operations to try to ease the situation in the United States.

The Canadian government is “monitoring the supply chain and Canadian ports, very, very closely,” Freeland told reporters at a press conference in Washington. “We are definitely mindful of the supply chain issues in the Canadian economy,” she said.

Freeland was in Washington for the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as well as meetings with her G7 and G20 counterparts.

“The issue of both supply chain congestion and supply chain shortages was discussed at the G7 meeting, at the G20 meeting, at the broader IMF meeting,” Freeland said, adding she also discussed it with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and the deputy prime minister of South Korea, a country Freeland said has an important role in the global supply chain.

“It's definitely a concern on the minds of finance ministers around the world,” she said.