China Freight Update - COVID Restrictions

China's COVID restrictions have been increased in certain areas amidst COVID outbreaks this week. Most notably COVID outbreaks, including the Omicron variant, have been seen in the Zhejiang, Tianjin and Guangzhou regions of the country, prompting the government to impose heavy restrictions on manufacturing in addition to new restrictions on trucking.

Crucially, China's Zhejiang region is one of the country's key manufacturing hubs and the rise in positive cases has caused mass disruption as Reuters reports that factories have ceased production in major industries such as battery and pharmaceutical manufacture as well as textiles. Furthermore multiple districts have been placed either under lockdown or partial lockdown, including the Ningbo district which is home to one of China's main ports.

Ningbo Port

Ningbo's port area has seen heavy restrictions applied as a result, with quarantine requirements building an increasing reluctance from drivers to enter the area.
Drivers are also facing further restrictions on entering the port terminals dependant on previous destinations that they have travelled from, or through, in a bid to reduce COVID transmissions moving cross-country. However, even with the introduction of these restrictions, as yet, no major impact has been seen on ocean freight although in-land trucking is seeing delays due to time-consuming COVID testing.

We will continue to keep you updated.

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