: Supply-chain bottlenecks set to be focus of Biden meeting, speech

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President Joe Biden is planning to host a meeting Wednesday on supply chains, as disruptions have led to lower world-growth forecasts and threaten to snarl the holiday-shopping season.

Biden, said the White House, “will meet with senior officials and stakeholders to discuss collective efforts to address global transportation supply chain bottlenecks,” as well as deliver remarks afterward.

Wednesday’s planned events represent the latest administration effort to address supply-chain disruptions. In late September, auto makers, semiconductor producers and other technology companies met with administration officials. The government pitched a program for companies to reveal more information about their supply chains, the Wall Street Journal reported, in an effort to quantify where bottlenecks exist.

Biden will be meeting with the leadership of the Port of Los Angeles, the Port of Long Beach and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union to “discuss the challenges at ports across the country and actions each partner can take to address these delays,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday.

The administration also will hold a roundtable with some companies, including Walmart
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,
UPS
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and Home Depot
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to talk about “how the largest cargo owners and shipping companies can address congestion,” Psaki said.

Meanwhile, as the pandemic continues to snarl supply-chain channels, MarketWatch reports that major retailers like Home Depot and Target
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are chartering ships to deliver goods in time for the holiday season.

See: Walmart, Target, Home Depot and other large retailers are chartering ships to bypass supply chain problems. Will the strategy save Christmas?

The meeting is scheduled a day after the International Monetary Fund lowered its world-economy growth forecast for this year, citing in part supply-chain disruptions in wealthy countries.

Now read: IMF says global economy is losing momentum

MarketWatch’s Victor Reklaitis contributed to this report.