The major challenges we have to face in 2021

2020 has been a year of contrasts, marked by crises that each of us had to face with courage and determination but also with great humility.

The main lesson I have learned from this unprecedented health crisis is that it has enabled us to focus on what is companies’ main strength: their employees. At CMA CGM, their health, their mobilization and their cohesion have been at the heart of our priorities. This is all the more important for a family-owned group like ours. And I would like to thank all of our teams for their unwavering commitment during this period.

The crisis we are going through has also shown the ability of companies to adapt, the solidity of their business model and strategy, and therefore their resilience.

We’ve had to constantly adapt our service offering to meet the needs of our customers, who are themselves often confronted with a very high level of complexity. Those who had already carried out their digital transformation are now coming out stronger.

We all hope that the year 2021 will see the end of the pandemic.

Whatever happens, we will have major challenges to face this year. To name just a few:

• An equal distribution of vaccines, benefiting not only developed countries but all those who need them everywhere in the world;
• Protecting the environment: our group has already made strong commitments with the objective of carbon neutrality by 2050 and by making bold choices such as LNG peculiarly. We are proud to be a pioneering company in the maritime industry's energy transition, but we will have to go even further.
• Greater agility to deal with changes in international trade, whether it will be the growth of e-commerce or the increased regionalization of trade. This should spur us to redouble our efforts to offer increasingly integrated and value-creating solutions.

In an economic context that is still uncertain, with major upheavals that are reshaping our businesses and global economic exchanges, the real challenge for companies will be to combine growth and environmental protection, to build a more responsible globalization at the service of men and women across the globe. This is a strong conviction, reinforced by the various crises we have encountered.

 We all have a role to play to achieve this in 2021!

 I wish you all the very best for this new year.