Dear valued customers,

On 8/11/2021 (Wed), Ningbo terminal had a worker who tested positive for COVID-19 and is raising the specter of a Chinese port meltdown given officials’ aggressive effort to contain the pandemic and pre-existing vessel congestion in Ningbo and nearby Shanghai.

If you ship cargo with us via YML, WHL, MSC which is not calling at Ningbo Meidong Container Terminal or Meishan terminal, no impact at this moment, but risk is that as congestion builds at Ningbo, which is China’s second-largest container port, it will spread to other ports, which happened when Yantian International Container Terminals (YICT) partially shut down for four weeks from late May, congesting neighboring marine terminals in Southern China.

As of Wednesday, there were 28 container ships at berth and anchored in Ningbo, totaling 186,749TEU in capacity, there are 113 container ships totaling roughly 417,000 TEU in capacity at the Port of Shanghai, the world’s busiest cargo gateway.

With this sudden suspension, we expect a delay in planned sailings that might affect your cargo planning. The main issue is if Ningbo port is closed for some days or one week, there will be a binger impact at the other terminals too.

In addition, since there are a lot of cancelled sailings in August, some shipments will definitely be carried over to September.   If you have cargo that did not ship yet or can’t get space secured for September, the next available one would be in or after mid-October, since China’s national holiday will be from October 1st to 7th, Hence, the space in September will be VERY tight, especially the week before the holiday.

Please send your new booking to us EARLY, so it would be better for us to secure the space from carriers for you in the next few months.

Please do not hesitate to reach out to your sales representative if you have any questions. We thank you for your support!