Driving in Addis Abeba is no easy task, and the same could be said about many places across the country. Taking a vehicle on the road can be a little dicey. Drivers have to deal with everything from unyielding pedestrians and livestock clogging the streets to aggressive motorists and unmaintained roads full of potholes. Owning a vehicle is even more demanding, bringing all the additional requirements and costs associated with maintenance.

For Yigremachew Abayu, 27, the commitments are almost too much to handle. Residing with his parents in Addis Abeba, he works as a driver using the ride-hailing apps that have taken the capital by storm over the past few years. He owns a Toyota Vitz model from the early 2000s. He depends on the revenues the car generates for his livelihood. Yigremachew nets up to 800 Br on a good day, serving dozens of passengers. He tries to set aside what little is left over for rainy days after paying for gas and other necessities.

The past year has been one long rainy day for Yigremachew. Around 10 months ago, he needed to replace a tyre and bought one, the Chinese Linglong brand, for a little over 1,000 Br. Earlier this month, a bad puncture forced him to go looking for another one. He was asked to pay more than 4,000 Br for the same product. A disgruntled Yigremachew forked over the money.

Last week, he noticed his front-left tyre was quite severely worn down and went shopping for a replacement. The price had risen by 500 Br over 12 days. The dealers told him the familiar response most shop owners blame for the rising cost of goods.

"They only tell us it's because of the forex," Yigremachew told Fortune.

The foreign currency crunch is almost halting the economy, driving the unrelenting inflation. The depreciation of the Birr against major currencies is part of the equation. It is often brought up in conversations about the skyrocketing cost of living.

However, what is contributing to the misery of drivers like Yigremachew and, indeed, consumers at large, but goes largely overlooked is the shipping crisis haunting the global supply chain.

Ethiopia is one of the places where the effects of disruption in logistics are becoming evident. The crisis began in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as lockdowns and restrictions began to take hold across the world. Factories in China, which produced nearly a third of all manufactured goods and recorded exports of almost three trillion dollars last year, shut down due to the virus. The effects were immediate.

Manufacturers across the globe were forced to cut down production or cease operations entirely. Unable to source parts, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles closed a plant in Serbia in February 2020. Hyundai was forced to do the same with its factories in South Korea that same month. As people in other parts of the world, mainly the developed economies, were subjected to lockdowns and restrictions, e-commerce and online shopping saw a boom. People working from home or attending classes from the comfort of their houses had more time on their hands.

Reluctance to shop outside, combined with large cheques in the mail as part of stimulus packages, meant they were encouraged to shop online. Governments worldwide pumped over 11 trillion dollars into their economies as a stimulus package in response to COVID-19 induced economic crisis. The global e-commerce sector saw a dramatic rise of nearly 20pc in 2021, to 4.9 trillion dollars, according to eMarketer. It is projected to grow to 7.4 trillion dollars in four years.

As orders on platforms such as Amazon and Alibaba (two of the nine most prominent online vendors) surged, warehouse shelves quickly ran empty. These companies rushed to place backlog orders with Chinese manufacturing plants. Serendipitously for online shoppers, China recovered from the pandemic sooner than other parts of the world, and factories there hastened to fulfil orders and ship goods out.

The massive backlog and the surge in demand translated to overcrowded shipping industry. Shipping giants like the Denmark-based Maersk began charging more than five times the pre-pandemic fees to ship containers to the United States or Europe from China. The price of shipping a single container to these markets surpassed 20,000 dollars, up from 4,000 dollars two years ago.

Last week, cargo estimated to be worth 22 billion dollars was stuck off the coast of California, with vessels facing waits of up to two weeks to anchor in ports.

The mismatch in the flow of shipping containers has fueled the global logistics crisis, leaving many frustrated.

Tilahun Chala, an importer, is among those vexed by the situation.

An importer of tyres and stationery items, Tilahun had ordered the shipment of nearly a dozen containers of tyres from China seven months ago. An order like this, routine for him, would take less than a month to reach Djibouti or Modjo, an inland dry port facility 77Km east of Addis Abeba.

Though Tilahun endures the delay, he is contending with the another consequence of the shipping crisis: cost. A year ago, he would have paid around 110,000 Br to ship a 40ft container from a port in China, the source of 26pc of Ethiopia's 13.8 billion dollars worth of imports in 2020. He has to pay out five-fold for each container now. Faced with the dramatic surge in shipping costs, Tilahun sees only two choices. He can get out of the import business or raise prices.

Like so many others, he has opted for jacking up the retail prices. Tyres designed for Toyota Hilux models go for 8,500 Br each at his store, double the price from a year ago.

"I'm sorry the prices are getting so high," he told Fortune. "We've no other choice."

Tilahun depends on the Ethiopian Shipping & Logistics Services Enterprise (ESLSE), the state-owned shipping monopoly, to ship in his goods. Operating with a fleet of 11 vessels, the Enterprise remains the sole provider of multimodal transport services, but it, too, has taken a hit. The Enterprise transported 150,000 containers last year, 20,000 lower than what its executives had planned earlier in the year. It had managed nearly 200,000 in the previous year.

Over the past few months, the executives have taken decisions they hope would cushion the impact of the global logistics crisis.

They quadrupled tariffs in May this year, citing the crisis and shortage of shipping containers. They went out shopping for 6,000 containers, more than half of which have already been delivered. Still, the measures have not made much of a difference.