The cancellation of multiple October sailings from Asia to Europe is an attempt by the carriers to push capacity down and raise rates, but if they fail, they may not have another opportunity to significantly raise prices before Chinese New Year, next February. Container shipping lines across the three alliances have announced additional blank sailings …
In response to COVID developments and rising geopolitical tensions, companies may be re-shoring, or near-shoring production out of China, but the country’s dominance in world trade makes cutting it out of global supply chains impossible, say leaders of two of the world’s most important companies. Europe is trying to reduce its dependency on China as …
Shipping lines have cancelled almost 30% of pre and post Chinese New Year sailings from Asia, with THE Alliance cutting 36% to Europe and diverting backhaul sailings around the Cape of Good Hope, which adds two weeks transit time to China. In a normal year, the weeks building up to China’s Lunar New Year holiday …
If travel for the Lunar New Year holidays increases COVID transmission, we will see large numbers of infected workers having to quarantine, which will delay their return to work and factories, hauliers, terminals and ports that would traditionally restart operations by mid-February could be shut significantly longer, with export and supply chain delays. This Sunday, …
The move by President Xi Jinping to lift China’s zero-COVID strategy and ease travel restrictions has raised hopes that it may soften the blow of higher global interest rates, unleashing production lines and unlocking supply chains after a turbulent three years. From the 8th January 2023 travellers arriving in China will not have to quarantine and people …
The latest, market leading source, Sea-Intelligence schedule reliability figures show a slight decline of 0.7% in September to 45.5%, which is the first fall since reliability began to trend upwards in April and follows the year’s largest reliability increase of 5.8% in August. The average delay for late vessel arrivals has been dropping consistently since …
For much of the last two years, container shipping lines have struggled to maintain sufficient capacity to meet demand, but in recent months demand has fallen away, which means that some vessels are not fully utilised, with carriers blanking more sailings and reducing supply using various tactics. As demand has weakened over recent months due to global events, a percentage of …
Just a few months after Shanghai emerged from the city-wide COVID lockdowns, which disrupted supply chains and forced factories to halt operations, manufacturers have been closed again, this time by the impact of climate change. A new challenge to Chinese production and sourcing. An intense heatwave and drought around the Yangtze river basin has seriously depleted …
With individual district lockdowns and mass testing again underway, the trade press have been reporting that Shanghai could go back into lockdown, which would be a major disruption as we enter the traditional peak season. It’s been just six weeks since Shanghai emerged from its two-month zero-COVID lockdown and several districts have been subjected to …
Global sea freight operations have struggled with disruptions since the outbreak of the COVID pandemic over two years ago, and this has continued into 2022, with a peak shipping season this summer that is likely to be very chaotic. China’s zero-COVID strategy lockdowns have slowed supply chains and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has effectively ripped …