China’s most-populous city has yet to give an indication of when lockdown measures will lift, fuelling greater uncertainty for those involved in global logistics.
Shanghai’s daily Covid-19 infections set a record for the sixth straight day on Thursday, as citywide mass testing identified 19,982 cases in China’s financial and commercial hub.
EU Chamber of Commerce in China members estimated yesterday that Shanghai port volumes are down by about 40% week-on-week, despite the port’s operator insisting that it is business as usual at Yangshan and Waigaoqiao thanks to a bubble working environment at the quayside.
The issue, as has repeatedly been stressed since the lockdown came in 11 days ago, is down to limited trucking availability and the shuttering of many factories and warehouses. Many of the entry and exit points on the highways between provinces are also blocked causing severe supply chain issues.
Cargo volumes through the port tracked by FourKites, a supply chain data firm, had dropped by about a third since March 12 as shippers reroute freight elsewhere.
“The indefinite extension of the Shanghai lockdown is causing a significant slowdown of operations at the city’s major air and ocean ports due to labor shortages as well as a drop in the availability of goods as manufacturing and warehouses close, and trucking availability is significantly disrupted,” an update from online freight platform Freightos earlier this week stated.
While Shanghai is hogging the headlines, the fallout from Beijing’s pursuit of a zero-Covid strategy is causing lockdown havoc across vast swathes of the world’s most populous nation.
Japanese bank Nomura estimated on Tuesday that a total of 23 Chinese cities have implemented either full or partial lockdowns, which collectively are home to an estimated 193m people and contribute to 22% of China’s GDP.
“These figures could significantly underestimate the full impact, as many other cities have been mass testing district by district, and mobility has been significantly restricted in most parts of China,” said Ting Lu, chief China economist at Nomura.
Source: splash247.com
