China is currently facing the largest amount of cases since the pandemic started, as it is battling the Omicron variant. Counter measures and restrictions imposed in parts of the country are seriously impacting supply chains again. This page shall serve as platform for regular updates to our members. 

Last Update May 16th 2022 – 08.00 hrs – CET

Shanghai gradually opening until June 1st

The Zero Covid policy remains clear. As cases are finally declining further, the Shanghai government has announced an opening up schedule that sees a gradual lifting of limitations starting May 16th, towards June 1st. However none of our colleagues and friends are free yet and we shall wait to see the action on the announcement and shall monitor how warehousing, trucking and production facilities will be impacted.

==== From our last update May 8th ====

The Chinese government last week made their stance on Zero Covid very clear and the signal to all levels is a “whatever it takes” approach. From the perspective of countries that are all opening up, this might look very strange and measures draconian, but just looking at 1 mio dead in the US, this would easily mean 4-5 Mio in China (not even considering knock-on effects), which no leadership wants to have on their hands. The fear of being considered slacking, being responsible for new cases or an increase in numbers seems to cause those responsible, from compound volunteers to district leaders to rather manage too tight than too little. Despite some reports of individual cases being “free” or having returned to work, no one within our contacts has moved beyond the limits of their compound, albeit some warehouses were allowed to work under limited conditions. And we may expect this situation to last at least for the month of June. The famous “GaoKao”, annual university entry exam, for this year has just been postponed by one month to July 7-9, which can be taken as an indicator for that.

The Chinese government is willing to bleed economically for this, we can likely expect more stimuli and maybe compensation to certain businesses, for which there are reserves as China did not suffer like other countries in recent years. However we can no doubt anticipate that the ongoing situation will pull down global GDP and have further ripple effects for supply chains.

We are in for another ride on the rollercoaster. 

From a logistics perspective, ports and airports continue operating but trucking continues to remain the key limitation, as drivers are locked up or limited by a wide range of different regulations when moving around, from sealing of cabins to extended testing. Liners have started to implement blank sailings whenever and wherever they feel lower demand, following their recipe of success from 2020.

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Some useful links on the matter:

Other ports 

Currently no impact on other ports reported, but lockdowns and testing in several areas of the country and given the confirmed policy we can expect swift action on any local flareups in the future.