Shanghai port battles with congestion
Shanghai port, which has been running at about half of its capacity for a month due to a citywide lockdown, is facing increasing congestion amid a lack of trucking services and manpower.
Imported containers are left unattended at the yards for as long as 12 days, compared with 4 1 /2 days before the lockdown, according to Freightos, a global freight booking platform. And the time taken for ships waiting for a berth at the Yangshan Deep-Water Port has risen to two days from 12 hours in late March.
“There have been some skipped port calls at Shanghai and some carriers have announced the cancellation of some services in May,” said Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos. “But these are not widespread yet.”
Yangshan and Waigaoqiao, the two major container ports in Shanghai, began operating under a “closed-loop” system on March 28 when the financial and manufacturing hub embarked on a two-phase lockdown.
Many engineers, technicians, workers and drivers employed at the two harbours essentially sleep at the sites to ensure zero contact with outsiders.
While state-owned operator Shanghai International Port Group (SIPG) would not disclose the size of labour force deployed for the “closed-loop” operations, industry officials said the sites now accounted for just half of the total workforce before the lockdown was imposed.
Shanghai has yet to publish a time frame for lifting the lockdown.
SIPG said it could still handle 100,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) a day in April. Based on the total throughput of 47 million TEUs last year, daily handling volume stood at about 129,000 TEUs.
Shipping executives, however, are not convinced, saying the numbers do not tell the true story.
“The bulk of the containers are stuck at the terminals due to a shortage of trucks,” said Xiong Hao, an assistant general manager at Shanghai Jump International Shipping.
Shanghai has been the world’s largest container port for 12 years, buoyed by China’s booming exports and imports and the fast-growing economy in the Yangtze River Delta, the country’s most affluent region.
But the Covid-19 outbreak that led to a shutdown of the shipping hub is likely to have a long-lasting impact on Shanghai’s economy and diminish its role as a gateway city for foreign businesses and capital to enter China.
Global shipping companies and exporters in the Yangtze region are turning to Ningbo port in Zhejiang, which is a three-hour drive from Shanghai, to avoid the gridlock at Shanghai port.
Mila Shen, a merchant dealing with exports of Chinese-made consumer goods in Shaoxing city in Zhejiang province, said: “We have completely given up on Shanghai port because the warehouses [in Shaoxing] have banned trucks plying between the two cities. Ningbo port is facing congestion, too. I had planned to book a slot on a container liner expected to depart on [April] 15. I am still waiting for a slot.”
At a meeting of the State Council on April 18, Vice-Premier Liu He instructed that a nationally recognised Covid-19 test pass be issued to enable truck drivers to deliver raw materials, components, food and essential supplies between provinces without having to wait for results at every stop.
The cabinet also promised to grant more special vehicle passes to facilitate trucks to ply between Shanghai and neighbouring cities such as Suzhou and Hangzhou.
“But makeshift support measures during a prolonged lockdown may not be enough to ease the congestion,” warned Lu Ming, an agent at the Shanghai Ocean Shipping Agency.