THE IMPACT OF TRANSPORT ACTIVITY ON THE MOROCCAN SUPPLY CHAIN DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

ABSTRACT

The Covid-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted all areas of our private and public lives, including how we travel and how our goods reach their final destinations. The Covid-19 pandemic is affecting our mobility and transportation functions in unprecedented ways. It serves as a reminder of the importance of the movement of people and goods to our economy and society, but also of the industry's structural weaknesses. The supply chain has been strongly impacted by the devastating effects caused by the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic on the global economy. The degree of impact of these effects has reached companies' supply chains, particularly in terms of transport activity. For this, We carried out a study on the impact of transport activity on the supply chain of 196 Moroccan companies during the spread of the Covid-19 Virus. Thanks to the Chi-square test and the non-parametric Kruskal-Walis test, we found that the supply chain was significantly impacted by the disruption of this activity, particularly in terms of supply, purchase, and transport of goods ( p < 0.01) and a weak effect on production (p < 0.1). We found that the level of the chain disturbance is related to the nature of the transport. The upstream of the supply chain was impacted by the disruption of the transport of information while the downstream of the supply chain was influenced by the transport of goods.