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Regionalised supply chains and the impact on shipping


Regionalised supply chains and the impact on shipping

08 juli 2025

Contact: Johan Woxenius: Den här e-postadressen skyddas mot spambots. Du måste tillåta JavaScript för att se den.

After a series of studies of disruptions in global supply chains, logistics research at the University of Gothenburg, RISE, VTI and Chalmers University of Technology is now focusing on the question of whether supply chains are about to be transformed into shorter chains and how this would affect shipping. Such regionalisation would mean that companies divide up their production systems so that an economic region – mainly Europe, Asia, and North America (which could possibly be divided between the USA and non-USA America as trade relations between the United States and its neighbours sour) – can function self-sufficiently. This means that suppliers are sought locally/regionally and production is dimensioned for sale within the region. When this pre-study on regionalisation began in 2023, there were findings from many disruptions in transport chains, but it was disputed whether regionalisation was actually underway. A series of interviews in 2023-2024 with Swedish manufacturing and trading companies gave the impression that the companies wanted to shorten supply chains, but that they found it very difficult. There also seemed to be an unspoken fatigue after the pandemic and that logistics managers would like to return to old ruts. The examples were mainly a desire to reduce dependence on China, but that European suppliers lack capacity, quality and price. The interviewed freight forwarders and shipping companies started to get more questions from shippers about intra-European transport, but it didn't materialise as new flows. In interviews in the spring of 2025, companies testify to a much stronger desire to regionalise as the problem picture has changed from disruptions in transport to high and varying tariffs, sanctions and reluctance to sell critical raw materials and dual-use technologies. But this does not mean that it has become easier, neither to analyse the conditions nor to implement regionalisation. The impression from the interviews is that there is a certain paralysis right now and it is obvious that it is not possible to make decisions about new factories, suppliers and markets when the conditions are so unclear.


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