Containers carrying frozen food and chemicals are piling up at China’s biggest port in Shanghai, as the city’s lockdown and COVID-19 testing mean truckers cannot get to the docks.
A shortage of trucks to haul containers from the port is impeding the clearance of imports, Ocean Network Express Holdings Ltd (ONE) said in a customer advisory on Wednesday.
While the port is operating normally, a “critically high” numbers of refrigerated containers and items classified as dangerous piled up at two storage yards, which means that some ships carrying those types of cargo might not be able to unload at the port, the company said.
Photo: Bloomberg
Shanghai is the epicenter of China’s worst COVID-19 outbreak in two years, with almost 20,000 new daily cases reported yesterday.
The shortage of trucks is also hitting companies in the city that have been able to continue working through the lockdown, with chip giant Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯國際) struggling to secure trucks to ship finished goods.
Truckers form a crucial component of supply chains in China, moving raw materials from coastal ports to factories further inland. The backlog is likely contributing to growing ship waiting lines off China, threatening even more delays and higher freight rates in coming months.
Tightened restrictions on truck drivers in other parts of China are also delaying the delivery and return of containers to ports, freight forwarders said.
There is a possibility that containers of frozen food or hazardous items, such as lithium batteries or chemicals, would not be able to land at Shanghai and would need to be rerouted to other ports, ONE said.
Yantian terminal at the Port of Shenzhen in southern China would halt the collection and delivery of containers at all berths for about two hours yesterday evening to smooth out port operations, the port said in an advisory to customers.
Truckers were advised not to arrive earlier to pick up containers, as they could get held up, it said.
In related news, international airlines have been told to ensure that flights into Shanghai are less than half full as part of the city’s latest attempt to curb the spread of COVID-19, people familiar with the matter said.
Non-Chinese carriers were instructed by the Shanghai Center for Disease Control and Prevention to reduce passenger loads to a maximum of 40 percent starting on Monday until at least the end of the month, the people said.
Capacity on foreign flights has a nationwide ceiling of 75 percent.
Separately, the three airlines flying from Hong Kong to Shanghai — Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd (國泰航空), Hong Kong Airlines Ltd (香港航空) and China Eastern Airlines Corp (中國東方航空) — have been directed to rotate on the route so that they each only fly to the city once every three weeks, a person with knowledge of the situation said.
That change starts from today and would last for an indefinite period, the person said.
A 50 percent cap on the number of passengers on those planes would remain in place, they added.
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