Shipbrokers in Italy are cautious but expect little commercial effect as a result of the nationwide lockdown the government imposed on Tuesday to mitigate spread of the coronavirus.
The Covid-19 virus has killed 631 people and has affected more than 10,000 in Italy, which is facing the world's worst outbreak outside of China.
But Italy's best-known shipbroker, Banchero Costa, doesn't expect to see any impact to its commercial operations, according to its managing director.
Francesco Fuselli told TradeWinds that the firm's Genoa office remains open, but the company has invited all its employees to work from home if possible.
Around half of the workforce have opted to work remotely so far, said Fuselli, who was working from the office on Tuesday but plans to work remotely too.
"We expect zero impact — at least on our services. The market is something totally different," he explained.
"Absolutely no one has been infected among our group or families or relations."
Luckily, the Liguria region in northern Italy, where Genoa is located, has only seen a few cases of the virus so far, Fuselli said.
"[The lockdown] is something that's actually helping us in implementing increasing the network of technologies providing the possibilities to our employees to work from home," Fuselli said of the situation.
Staff at dry cargo broker Unibulk Trading are all working from home until further notice.
"We are strictly following all the instructions as received by our government," Alessandro Massimilla, freight trader at the Genoa-based shop told TradeWinds.
"No particular impact is expected on the daily operations of the company except for some internal administration works, which can be easily postponed."
Technology helping
It's a similar situation over at Bravo Tankers in Genoa, according to its president.
Lorenzo Rosato told TradeWinds that the tanker broker decided to implement remote working last Friday, with around half its workforce doing so.
"We were able to work from home before and now we're just running this new experience," he explained.
"The main issue are the communications — how to exchange information among us and with the clients, but we have a few systems that are available: emails, Skype, ICE Connect [instant messenger], mobile phones, etc."
The situation is helped by the fact that oil companies in Italy are working from home too and so far there haven't been many difficulties — although all meetings, business trips and eventual holidays have had to be postponed, he added.
"It is fundamental to proceed helping each other, but fortunately we have good team in our offices of Genoa and Geneva and we believe we will follow properly our business opportunities and service to the clients," Rosato said.
"We will see in a few weeks how it has worked."
