Ningbo port situation eases
The suspension of trucking services in several parts of Zhejiang province, which slowed the movement of cargo through one of China’s biggest and most important ports, Ningbo, has been lifted as COVID outbreak fears recede.
Strict controls were imposed on lorries moving goods to or from the Beilun district in Ningbo after the discovery of several cases of COVID in the area last week.
This suspension, along with restrictions on truckers in some areas in and around Zhejiang, halted operations at some yards and warehouses at Ningbo port.
The curbs began last week after the city reported an outbreak of COVID which led to the closure of container freight stations and factories in the Beilun district near to the port, raising fears that importers would be unable to stock up their inventories, forcing them to look for alternative shipping or products, which may feed into higher costs for the consumer.
Ningbo is one of the world’s top container gateways and a crucial part of the global supply chains that connects importers to factories in East China. The port was partly shut for weeks last August after a COVID outbreak, causing a slowdown in exports, disruptions and congestion across supply lines.
Container loading and discharge operations at Ningbo port have been operating normally, but the impact on trucking and access to the port has been severe, making it extremely difficult to bring containers in or out, adding to concerns that shipping lines may decide to omit Ningbo.
With just a few weeks until Chinese New Year many shippers have been diverting consignments to alternative ports, particularly Shanghai rather than risk long landside delays at Ningbo.
Just yesterday reports in the trade press highlighted the lack of trucking permits for commercial vehicles to enter the Beilun district, with just 6,000 permits released for the 20,000 trucks in the area and, in a customer-advisory, Maersk said that just 10% of trucking capacity is operating in the Ningbo area.
In a fast-moving situation, our office in Ningbo have confirmed that the port and local trucking has resumed normal operations and they expect that any backlog will be cleared quickly.
Elsewhere, nucleic acid testing for drivers are creating delays for local trucking and transport in the Shenzen and Tianjin areas, but the cities are not closed and port terminals are operating normally.
QINGDAO / DALIAN / XIAMEN / SHANGHAI / HONG KONG are operating normally
