Global container giant says crisis hasn’t upended trade routes

The world’s biggest container line says it’s still running at full speed and ensuring that goods are being transported despite “significant challenges in global supply chains.”

The chairman of A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, Jim Hagemann Snabe, told investors on Monday that the company is fully aware of its role in maintaining trade flows as the world sinks into an economic crisis.

The Copenhagen-based company is doing its best to get goods to customers “on time,” he said at Maersk’s annual general meeting, which was live-streamed.

About 80% of the world’s trade is transported by containers and Maersk controls about a fifth of the vessels that handle the seaborne shipments. The industry is responsible for ensuring that “food is on the shelves of the supermarkets and medicines are at the pharmacies,” Snabe said.

Last week Maersk dropped its financial guidance for 2020 citing uncertainty caused by the fallout of the coronavirus. But it promised to continue shareholder payouts. The pledge followed preliminary first-quarter earnings that showed Maersk’s cost controls were outweighing the damage done by declining freight volumes.

“We’re doing everything we can for world trade to remain as stable as possible,” Snabe said.