The number of container ships waiting off Qingdao, one of China’s biggest ports, has continued to rise, as the country doubles down on its COVID-zero policy, adding more delays to a strained global supply chain.
About 72 vessels were yesterday spotted off Qingdao port in Shandong Province, almost double the amount at the end of last month, shipping data compiled by Bloomberg showed.
The increased delays there and in other parts of China are expected to push up freight rates.
While there is usually a build-up of vessels seeking to enter China following the Lunar New Year holiday, volumes this year are being exacerbated by lockdowns aimed at curbing new COVID-19 outbreaks.
“The virus outbreaks are sprouting up in different parts of China, and lockdown measures do not seem as effective because the transmissibility of the new variants are higher,” said Salmon Aidan Lee (李沭福), head of polyesters at energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
“That leaves us with a situation that has worsened in the past few days at Qingdao,” he said.
Lee added that he expects freight rates to rise because of increasing delays.
There is also a growing backlog of vessels off the ports of Shanghai, Ningbo and Zhoushan. There were 262 ships counted there, up from 243 a week ago.
However, the situation off Shenzhen and Hong Kong has eased a bit, dropping to 162 vessels from 208 on Monday last week.
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