Post-pandemic spurt in global trade leading to container shortage: CSLA About 55 per cent of the container fleet is currently sitting in various ports or on water, as against a normal average of approximately 30 per cent, leading to less availability of containers globally and troubling exporters, including those in India, according to the Container Shipping Lines Association (India) (CSLA). The container shortage faced by Indian exporters is thus a global problem, not country specific, CSLA added. “From the beginning of July 2020, after months of lockdown, the US and Europe went on a buying spree and started importing big time from India, China and the Far East. At the same time, Indian imports dropped due to low consumer demand locally and certain restrictions placed by the government on imports from China. This created a major equipment imbalance as export demand for containers far outweighed the import supply,” CSLA Executive Director Sunil Vaswani said.