Local Lockdown in China and the Stress Upon Global Supply Chain
With the rising cases of covid-19 across the world, signs of the global supply chain coming under stress have started to surface. The world’s largest container port, Ningbo in China has the attention of the world as Ningbo city has undertaken lockdown measures. The Chinese State media has said that the volume at Ningbo has not dropped even after the lockdown measures have been implemented across the city of Ningbo.
The Beilun district has implemented local lockdowns and performed mass testing which has stressed the availability of truckers connecting Ningbo-Zhoushan port. Freight Forwarder Shapiro has reported the closure of a container depot in the lockdown area. Authorities are implementing strict entry and exit control in the affected areas as China is following its zero-tolerance policy towards covid-19.
Lars Jensen, CEO of Vespucci Maritime, a liner consultancy has said that with the continued zero-tolerance policy, there lies a risk of larger disruption not only to the supply chain but also to the manufacturing sector in the coming few weeks.
China has closed its land border crossing with Vietnam as the Chinese border province Guangxi is under covid-induced lockdown. This has led to freight being stuck on the border for the past few days. Along the Yangtze river, two pilots tested positive for covid-19 and some 200 pilots are under quarantine. All these incidents of lockdown and restrictions are going to disrupt the movement of cargo in the coming few days.
The year had started well as the daily container throughput of the Ningbo Port was reported to be higher than the past year. Between January 1 to January 3, the daily throughput was 97,000 TEU, an 8.5% increase on a year-on-year basis.
source: FleetMon
