• TPM24
  • March 3-6, 2024 | Long Beach Convention Center

Greg Knowler

S&P Global

Senior Editor, Europe-Journal of Commerce

Greg Knowler, JOC senior editor, Europe, is a highly experienced editor and publisher with more than 20 years of experience with mainstream titles and business-to-business magazines. His journalism career began in 1989 as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Durban, South Africa, covering the news during the turbulent end of apartheid. In 2000, he moved to Hong Kong and spent two years at the South China Morning Post sports desk before joining Cargonews Asia, and then IHS Markit in 2013 to cover Asia within the Maritime & Trade division. After 17 years in Hong Kong, Knowler relocated to London in mid-2017 to join the JOC, where he covers the European shipping, air, and intermodal markets; speaks regularly to industry groups; and chairs the programming committee for the JOC Container Trade Europe Conference.

Sessions With Greg Knowler

Monday, 27 February

  • 01:30pm - 02:00pm (PST) / 27/feb/2023 09:30 pm - 27/feb/2023 10:00 pm

    TPM23 CEO Series: A Conversation With DHL Global Forwarding's, Tim Scharwath
    As CEO of DHL Global Forwarding, part of Deutsche Post DHL Group, Tim Scharwath is responsible for a vast global network of air, ocean, and road freight services, as well as 42,000 employees. This places him in a great position to take stock of a freight transportation industry that has been through a chaotic three-year period since COVID-19 was declared as a pandemic. But will supply chains ever get back to some semblance of “normal” or has the international transportation of cargo changed forever, and how do shippers and their service providers build more resilience into supply lines at a time of operational and economic uncertainty? What about rising geopolitical risk, sourcing shifts, and sustainability? In this one-on-one discussion, Tim will tackle the growing set of issues facing cargo owners on the world's increasingly complex and volatile trade lanes.
  • 04:40pm - 05:25pm (PST) / 28/feb/2023 12:40 am - 28/feb/2023 01:25 am

    The Logistics Implications of Sourcing Shifts

    China’s market share of total U.S. containerized imports has been declining slowly for several years, and now hovers around 40 percent, as labor-intensive manufacturing has gravitated to lower-cost countries. But now a new and more elevated sense of risk over COVID-19 lockdowns and geopolitical uncertainties has led to growing urgency among companies to de-risk long-haul supply chains by turning to new sources of production, whether to Western Hemisphere countries or elsewhere in Asia. This session will examine this phenomenon and its implications for corporate supply chains based on original data and analysis. 

Tuesday, 28 February

  • 03:15pm - 04:00pm (PST) / 28/feb/2023 11:15 pm - 01/mar/2023 12:00 am

    Trade Lane Deep Dive: Asia-Europe
    Carriers on the Asia-Europe trade are sailing into a year when the economic and geopolitical challenges are deepening, with growing uncertainty on both the supply and demand side of the container shipping business. Russia’s ongoing war with Ukraine has resulted in huge hikes in energy prices, creating runaway inflation across Europe that has left consumers struggling with a cost-of-living crisis expected to extend through 2023. This already has dampened demand for containerized transport through an anemic 2022 peak season —North Europe imports from China fell 10 percent in the July-September seasonal peak — and there are no expectations of the traditional surge in volume ahead of Chinese New Year on Jan. 22. Carriers are trying to match capacity with falling demand by blanking sailings in an aggressive program in which they withdrew 1.6 million TEU in the last four months of 2022, and some analysts warn that a rate war is possible. As economic and geopolitical headwinds strengthen, this session will dive into the Asia-Europe supply-demand fundamentals to examine the host of factors stacking up to undermine the stability of the trade lane, including capacity flooding back into the market, tanking demand, and rising COVID-19 infections in China ensuring no change in Beijing’s lockdown approach to the pandemic. 
  • 04:00pm - 04:45pm (PST) / 01/mar/2023 12:00 am - 01/mar/2023 12:45 am

    Trade Lane Deep Dive: The Trans-Atlantic
    The trans-Atlantic has traditionally been a stable trade lane, and as the world finds its footing following the COVID-19 years, that reputation has not only remained intact, but it has been further entrenched. In 2022, the trans-Atlantic became the most profitable of the east-west trade lanes, according to Alphaliner, with sustained demand and elevated rates driving up the average per-mile revenue while the trans-Pacific and Asia-Europe routes struggled with fast-eroding volume and precipitous price declines. Heavy congestion at ports on both sides of the Atlantic was a feature of the trade lane throughout 2022, and the bottlenecks in North Europe and on the US East Coast remained deep into the fourth quarter, keeping ship utilization high and propping up rate levels. But the rally won’t last forever. Indeed, deteriorating economic conditions and rising inflation in the US are expected to put the brakes on demand, while port congestion will no longer delay vessels, and rates will fall. When trans-Atlantic demand and rates will return to normal — or what that normal will look like — is difficult to predict but few in the industry expect the bull run to extend deep into 2023.
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