Yang Ming Marine Transport chairman Cheng Cheng-mount has asserted that the ongoing correction in container freight rates is just a blip and the market should not be worried that the segment could return to its pre-pandemic struggles. At an investment seminar organised by Taiwan Stock Exchange on 12 September, Cheng said that China’s Covid-19-related lockdowns had caused the decline in…
Covid lockdowns are ticking up in China again with neighbourhoods in key port cities such as Shenzhen and Dalian forced back home this week, and mass testing underway at other important maritime gateways including Tianjin. There is no let up in the government’s zero-covid policy, which has stretched global supply chains a great deal this year. The difference today is…
Freight rates, and especially the spot market ones, have fallen sharply since the beginning of the year, driven by declining consumer demand in the US market, according to the digital freight forwarding platform Shifl. Reaching highs in January 2022, at approximately US$17,000-18,000 / 40′ from China to the US West Coast, container shipping rates have risen to around US$7,000-8,000 /…
China’s zero-tolerance in the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown in Shanghai have affected the Port of Oakland in the United States, which has seen a 7% reduction in its box volumes in April, compared to the same month last year. In particular, the port’s containerised import loads fell 17% last month, while exports sagged 18%. The decline is largely due…
It is déjà vu as China’s second-busiest container port, Ningbo port, is now on “yellow alert” after some Covid-19 cases were found. If Ningbo port, which was locked down last August, is locked down again, and with Shanghai continuing to be closed off for the third week, logistical bottlenecks will be further exacerbated. As of 11 April, Ningbo had 11 new…
