Asia

Stuck waiting to enter China

The First quarter of 2022 witnessed another wave of Covid flareups in China. As early reported, despite China’s pre-emptive efforts, the infectious Omicron variant has been spreading in some major cities, which is seen as the most challenging Covid breakout since the start of the pandemic back in 2020, with four-digit new infections on daily basis. By the end of March, Shanghai and Jilin, a Northeast province in China, reported vast majority of new cases.

 

How China is dealing with the situation

Confronting the surge of positive cases, China continues to utilise its dynamic zero-Covid policy and prioritising people’s life and welfare above all else in combating the pandemic.

In early March, four large cities were in lock down and Shenzhen, China’s Silicon Valley and Tech Hub, was one of them. During its lockdown period (14-20 March), millions of residents were asked to go through NAT to detect the virus at the early stage, in efforts to contain the spread.

Shanghai has also been heavily hit and witnessed a continuous growth on daily new asymptomatic cases reaching 6311 on April 1st.

Given this context, local authorities have imposed a lockdown in the city with the plan to lift on April 5, 2022. Shanghai ports (Waigaoqiao and Yangshan) are currently working as per normal though, including vessel operations, yard handling and gate-in-and-out. Up to April 2, Maersk has not omitted any of its Shanghai calls or diverted calls to other ports due to Covid.

On the other hand, warehouse in the lockdown area is seriously impacted. It is foreseeable that the efficiency of Maersk trucking services from/to Shanghai will be further impacted due to the lockdown and we are providing multi-modal services via barge and rail as alternative solutions between Shanghai and nearby cities.

For airfreight, gateway operations are normal in Shanghai. However with more airlines cancelling flights for the coming days, more volumes will be shifted to other airports in China, including Zhengzhou and Beijing.

Solutions at hand

In continued support to businesses throughout this difficult period, the government has unveiled an array of relief measures for businesses aiming to mitigate impacts on the economic and social development in a timely manner.

On 15 Mar, the national health commission released a new Diagnosis and Treatment Plan for Covid. The 9th edition has adjusted the management of release from isolation and discharge criteria, with isolation management and post-discharge going from 14 days to 7 days, optimizing the measures and actions in combating the virus.

On the other hand, Chinese authorities have voiced their determination to keep supply chains moving, as shown in the approach to keep ports and terminals operational.

How will this affect trade?

The situation in China will cast a challenge onto the global supply chain recovery. The pandemic has revealed how lean the supply chain has become and any small disruption in the country will likely lead to ripple effects across the world.

Local lockdowns and other quarantine measures especially those surrounding Shanghai cause supply chain bottle necks primarily stemming from the trucking capacity shortage. Overall all terminals continue working as per normal with minor congestion caused by bad weather. Major impact is still at customer landside operation (factory, warehouse and trucking) where positive cases identified. Urgent support measures were implemented to help truckers to get back to business. Haulage services are back to normal in other ports in China.

At this point, domestic railway service has not been severely impacted which just requires planning in advance as the anti-epidemic policy mainly affects last/first mile operations. there will be noticeable drop-in trucking services between Shenzhen and nearby cities due to stricter Covid-19 controls and need for drivers to have frequent NAT leading to longer delivery times and higher transport costs. In Hong Kong, together checks and tests on cross-boundary truckers have led to a cut of at least 70% in trucking capacity, which in turn is having a domino effect in the rest of the supply chain. The same challenge also applies to Shanghai for inter-provincial pick-up and drop-off.

Air freight also is affected, as airlines reduce the frequency of flights due to a decline in demand. Airlines are frequently adjusting their schedules to adapt to these impacts and fluctuation in volumes in recent weeks. Authorities have rerouted international passengers flight bound for Shanghai to other cities, with at least 106 flights scheduled to be delivered through May 1.

What Maersk is doing to handle the situation?

Whilst manufacturing also takes place in other parts of the country, delays will still affect output, though not drastically and Maersk has always been working around the clock trying to mitigate the impacts on our customers by providing favourable terms and flexibility.

Our Focus is on our customers. The situation develops from day to day, and we are in contact with our customers to understand their needs and how we can help them. Right now, the various terminals and ports in the area are still open and there’s no direct impact on our daily operations. Anne-Sophie Zerlang Kalsen, Head of Asia Pacific Ocean Customer Logistic

For example, when the government put Shenzhen under a week-long lock down, Maersk has made an agilely decision that amendment fee together with Bill Landing release and Late Payment Fee will not be applied to the clients affected in Shenzhen. Now with the lift of lockdown policy in Shenzhen, all the depots and warehouses have been re-opened on 20 March together with air freight, shipment in full operation.

In light of lock down situation in Shanghai, Maersk also released certain Relief Package including offering Free change of destination on import cargo into Shanghai port, that has ETA from April 1 to April 15; Free destination and demurrage on cancelled export shipments from Shanghai with ETD March 28 to April 5; Free amendment/cancellation for SPOT and shipment exported from or imported into Shanghai, with ETD 1 April to 5 April, for export, and ETA, 1 April to 5 April for import etc. You could find more and detailed information from Shanghai Situation Update: Relief Package for Customers.

While Shanghai is going through tough residential lock downs the Shanghai ports – Waigaoqiao and Yangshan – are currently working as normal on vessel operations, yard handling and gate-in-and-out, and I expect same to continue – however landside transportation efficiency is reduced due to availability of truckers. We are doing everything we can to alleviate our customers pains by increasing our activities on rail and barges and will continue to follow this rather fluid situation closely! Anne-Sophie Zerlang Kalsen, Head of Asia Pacific Ocean Customer Logistic

Taking into the air freight impact into consideration, Maersk is also introducing a new Zhengzhou-Liege weekly return charter service starting in April to help customers adjust to recent capacity reductions to Europe. The service will provide connections to major China and European cities through our seamless transfer service.

In responding to the overall Covid-19 Situation recently, Anne comments in a very positive way and said: “It’s important to say that things are developing daily. China has learned a lot from covid-19 during the past two years. We have seen a change in the approach where infected employees have been isolated concurrent with testing terminal workers and truck drivers. This is also what is happening now. All the terminals are operational without experiencing delays”

Maersk is closely monitoring the situation and will keep our customer update timely if there is any big change. If you have got any questions, please approach Maersk local professionals for further information.

This article is shared by courtesy of Maersk – www.maersk.com – A.P. Moller – Maersk is an integrated container logistics company and member of the A.P. Moller Group. Connecting and simplifying trade to help the customers grow and thrive. With a dedicated team of around 95000, operating in 130 countries; we go all the way to enable global trade for a growing world.

To see earlier news about Covid-19, click here.

Narjiss Ghajour

Editor-in-Chief of Maritime Professionals

114 Comments

  1. Hey, you used to write great, but the last several posts have been kinda boring?K I miss your great writings. Past several posts are just a bit out of track! come on!

  2. Hi there I am so glad I found your weblog, I really found you by error, while I was searching on Askjeeve for something else, Regardless I am here now and would just like to say thanks for a tremendous post and a all round interesting blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to go through it all at the minute but I have bookmarked it and also included your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read much more, Please do keep up the excellent job.

  3. Good – I should certainly pronounce, impressed with your web site. I had no trouble navigating through all the tabs and related info ended up being truly simple to do to access. I recently found what I hoped for before you know it in the least. Reasonably unusual. Is likely to appreciate it for those who add forums or anything, site theme . a tones way for your client to communicate. Excellent task..

  4. Hey, you used to write magnificent, but the last several posts have been kinda boring… I miss your great writings. Past few posts are just a little bit out of track! come on!

  5. It is truly a great and useful piece of info. I am satisfied that you shared this useful information with us. Please keep us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.

  6. I have recently started a web site, the information you offer on this site has helped me greatly. Thank you for all of your time & work. “Never trust anybody who says ‘trust me.’ Except just this once, of course. – from Steel Beach” by John Varley.

  7. Hello there! I know this is kind of off topic but I was wondering if you knew where I could find a captcha plugin for my comment form? I’m using the same blog platform as yours and I’m having difficulty finding one? Thanks a lot!

  8. Hi are using WordPress for your blog platform? I’m new to the blog world but I’m trying to get started and set up my own. Do you require any html coding expertise to make your own blog? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

  9. Good info and right to the point. I don’t know if this is actually the best place to ask but do you people have any ideea where to hire some professional writers? Thanks 🙂

  10. Thanks , I’ve just been looking for information approximately this topic for a while and yours is the greatest I have came upon so far. But, what concerning the conclusion? Are you certain in regards to the supply?

  11. We are a group of volunteers and opening a new scheme in our community. Your website provided us with useful information to work on. You’ve done an impressive task and our entire group can be thankful to you.

  12. I do not even know the way I ended up here, however I thought this post was once good. I do not recognise who you are however definitely you’re going to a well-known blogger if you happen to aren’t already 😉 Cheers!

  13. What¦s Happening i’m new to this, I stumbled upon this I’ve discovered It absolutely helpful and it has helped me out loads. I’m hoping to contribute & help different customers like its aided me. Good job.

  14. Great write-up, I¦m normal visitor of one¦s web site, maintain up the nice operate, and It’s going to be a regular visitor for a lengthy time.

  15. I must voice my respect for your kindness supporting men and women who should have help with this subject matter. Your special commitment to getting the solution throughout had become definitely important and have really allowed those just like me to reach their objectives. Your helpful help implies much to me and still more to my office colleagues. Best wishes; from everyone of us.

  16. I would like to thnkx for the efforts you’ve put in writing this web site. I am hoping the same high-grade blog post from you in the upcoming also. In fact your creative writing skills has inspired me to get my own site now. Actually the blogging is spreading its wings rapidly. Your write up is a good example of it.

  17. I have been surfing online greater than 3 hours lately, but I by no means discovered any fascinating article like yours. It is lovely price enough for me. In my opinion, if all site owners and bloggers made good content as you probably did, the net might be much more useful than ever before.

  18. F*ckin¦ remarkable things here. I¦m very happy to peer your post. Thank you so much and i am looking forward to contact you. Will you please drop me a mail?

  19. hi!,I like your writing very much! share we be in contact extra about your article on AOL? I need a specialist on this space to unravel my problem. May be that’s you! Taking a look ahead to peer you.

  20. I do trust all of the ideas you’ve introduced for your post. They are very convincing and can definitely work. Nonetheless, the posts are very brief for novices. Could you please extend them a bit from next time? Thank you for the post.

  21. I’d should examine with you here. Which is not something I often do! I get pleasure from reading a put up that can make folks think. Additionally, thanks for permitting me to remark!

  22. Hi there! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my previous room mate! He always kept talking about this. I will forward this article to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thank you for sharing!

  23. of course like your web site but you need to test the spelling on quite a few of your posts. Many of them are rife with spelling problems and I to find it very troublesome to tell the reality on the other hand I?¦ll definitely come again again.

  24. Howdy! Quick question that’s completely off topic. Do you know how to make your site mobile friendly? My website looks weird when browsing from my apple iphone. I’m trying to find a theme or plugin that might be able to correct this issue. If you have any recommendations, please share. With thanks!

  25. With havin so much content do you ever run into any issues of plagorism or copyright infringement? My website has a lot of completely unique content I’ve either created myself or outsourced but it looks like a lot of it is popping it up all over the web without my agreement. Do you know any techniques to help stop content from being ripped off? I’d certainly appreciate it.

  26. The next time I learn a weblog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my option to learn, however I really thought youd have one thing fascinating to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about one thing that you would repair in case you werent too busy searching for attention.

  27. I am no longer certain where you’re getting your info, however good topic. I needs to spend some time finding out much more or figuring out more. Thank you for great information I used to be in search of this info for my mission.

  28. I truly enjoy looking through on this web site, it holds good posts. “Don’t put too fine a point to your wit for fear it should get blunted.” by Miguel de Cervantes.

  29. I do enjoy the manner in which you have presented this particular issue and it does offer me some fodder for consideration. Nevertheless, coming from everything that I have personally seen, I simply just wish as the feedback stack on that people today stay on issue and in no way start upon a tirade regarding the news of the day. Still, thank you for this superb piece and though I can not really concur with this in totality, I regard your point of view.

  30. Appreciate it for helping out, superb information. “In case of dissension, never dare to judge till you’ve heard the other side.” by Euripides.

  31. Its like you read my mind! You appear to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you can do with some pics to drive the message home a bit, but instead of that, this is magnificent blog. A fantastic read. I’ll certainly be back.

  32. Attractive section of content. I simply stumbled upon your site and in accession capital to claim that I acquire in fact loved account your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing in your feeds and even I achievement you get right of entry to constantly fast.

  33. You actually make it seem really easy with your presentation however I to find this topic to be actually something that I think I might never understand. It seems too complicated and very wide for me. I’m having a look ahead on your next submit, I¦ll try to get the hold of it!

  34. Very good written story. It will be valuable to anybody who usess it, including yours truly :). Keep doing what you are doing – i will definitely read more posts.

  35. Fantastic site. Plenty of useful information here. I’m sending it to a few friends ans also sharing in delicious. And obviously, thanks for your effort!

  36. After study a few of the blog posts on your website now, and I truly like your way of blogging. I bookmarked it to my bookmark website list and will be checking back soon. Pls check out my web site as well and let me know what you think.

  37. Amazing blog! Do you have any suggestions for aspiring writers? I’m hoping to start my own website soon but I’m a little lost on everything. Would you suggest starting with a free platform like WordPress or go for a paid option? There are so many choices out there that I’m completely confused .. Any tips? Cheers!

  38. Good day very cool site!! Guy .. Excellent .. Wonderful .. I will bookmark your site and take the feeds additionally?KI’m happy to seek out so many helpful info here within the submit, we need develop more strategies on this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .

  39. We’re a group of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your site provided us with valuable info to work on. You have done a formidable job and our entire community will be thankful to you.

  40. This is very interesting, You’re a very skilled blogger. I’ve joined your feed and look forward to seeking more of your fantastic post. Also, I have shared your web site in my social networks!

  41. wonderful points altogether, you simply gained a new reader. What would you suggest about your post that you made some days ago? Any positive?

  42. It is in reality a nice and helpful piece of information. I am happy that you just shared this helpful info with us. Please stay us up to date like this. Thanks for sharing.

  43. I discovered your blog site on google and check a few of your early posts. Continue to keep up the very good operate. I just additional up your RSS feed to my MSN News Reader. Seeking forward to reading more from you later on!…

  44. Your style is so unique compared to many other people. Thank you for publishing when you have the opportunity,Guess I will just make this bookmarked.2

  45. Those are yours alright! . We at least need to get these people stealing images to start blogging! They probably just did a image search and grabbed them. They look good though!

  46. There are some fascinating cut-off dates on this article however I don’t know if I see all of them heart to heart. There is some validity but I’ll take maintain opinion until I look into it further. Good article , thanks and we want more! Added to FeedBurner as properly

  47. I have not checked in here for a while as I thought it was getting boring, but the last few posts are great quality so I guess I will add you back to my daily bloglist. You deserve it my friend 🙂

  48. I do enjoy the manner in which you have framed this problem and it does indeed provide me a lot of fodder for consideration. On the other hand, because of everything that I have seen, I really hope when the comments pile on that people today continue to be on point and don’t start upon a soap box regarding some other news du jour. Anyway, thank you for this superb point and whilst I do not really go along with this in totality, I regard your perspective.

  49. I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you create this website yourself? Plz reply back as I’m looking to create my own blog and would like to know wheere u got this from. thanks

  50. With everything which appears to be developing inside this subject matter, a significant percentage of perspectives are actually fairly radical. On the other hand, I am sorry, because I do not subscribe to your entire suggestion, all be it stimulating none the less. It looks to me that your remarks are not totally validated and in fact you are generally yourself not even totally confident of your point. In any event I did take pleasure in examining it.

  51. Hey are using WordPress for your site platform? I’m new to the blog world but I’m trying to get started and create my own. Do you require any coding knowledge to make your own blog? Any help would be really appreciated!

  52. As I web site possessor I believe the content matter here is rattling great , appreciate it for your efforts. You should keep it up forever! Good Luck.

  53. Hello, i feel that i noticed you visited my blog so i got here to “go back the prefer”.I’m trying to in finding issues to enhance my site!I assume its good enough to make use of some of your concepts!!

  54. Hey! I know this is kinda off topic but I was wondering which blog platform are you using for this site? I’m getting fed up of WordPress because I’ve had problems with hackers and I’m looking at options for another platform. I would be great if you could point me in the direction of a good platform.

  55. This web site is really a walk-through for all of the info you wanted about this and didn’t know who to ask. Glimpse here, and you’ll definitely discover it.

  56. Hey very nice blog!! Man .. Excellent .. Amazing .. I will bookmark your site and take the feeds also…I’m happy to find so many useful info here in the post, we need work out more techniques in this regard, thanks for sharing. . . . . .

  57. I’m impressed, I have to say. Actually not often do I encounter a blog that’s both educative and entertaining, and let me inform you, you have hit the nail on the head. Your idea is excellent; the difficulty is something that not enough individuals are speaking intelligently about. I am very blissful that I stumbled throughout this in my seek for one thing regarding this.

  58. Hi, Neat post. There’s an issue along with your web site in web explorer, might check thisK IE still is the market leader and a huge component to other people will omit your wonderful writing due to this problem.

  59. I’m extremely inspired with your writing abilities and also with the structure for your blog. Is that this a paid subject or did you customize it your self? Anyway stay up the excellent quality writing, it’s rare to see a nice weblog like this one nowadays..

  60. Yesterday, while I was at work, my sister stole my iphone and tested to see if it can survive a 25 foot drop, just so she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now broken and she has 83 views. I know this is totally off topic but I had to share it with someone!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button