Coronavirus: Shanghai port grapples with increasing congestion as mainland’s top shipping hub faces manpower crunch
- Time taken to move containers has risen to 12 days from less than five days before the lockdown, according to freight booking platform Freightos
- Yangshan and Waigaoqiao container ports are operating with around half of their normal manpower, industry executives say
Shanghai port, which has been running at about half of its capacity for a month due to a citywide lockdown, is facing increasing congestion amid a lack of trucking services and manpower.
Imported containers are left unattended at the yards for as long as 12 days, compared with four and a half days before the lockdown, according to Freightos, a global freight booking platform. And the time taken for ships waiting for a berth at the Yangshan Deep-Water Port has risen to two days, from 12 hours in late March.
“There have been some skipped port calls at Shanghai and some carriers have announced the cancellation of some services in May,” said Judah Levine, head of research at Freightos. “But these [cancellations] are not widespread yet.”
Many engineers, technicians, workers and drivers employed at the two harbours in Pudong – east of Shanghai’s Huangpu River – essentially sleep at the sites to ensure zero contact with outsiders.