Coronavirus: China’s key ports handled 20 per cent fewer containers in February

China’s top eight ports, including Shenzhen, Shanghai, Ningbo, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Tianjin, Dalian and Qingdao, saw traffic drops 19.8 in February from a year earlier

China is set to release its import and export data for the first two months next week, which would offer an official measure of how the coronavirus has disrupted trade

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According to a Reuters poll of 25 economists, China’s imports and exports likely tumbled in the first two months of 2020, with the coronavirus hitting global supply chains hard. Photo: Reuters

Published: 9:15pm, 5 Mar 2020Updated: 9:15pm, 5 Mar 2020

China’s top eight ports, including Shenzhen and Shanghai, reported a nearly 20 per cent drop in container traffic in February from a year earlier, according to the latest weekly statistics complied by the China Ports and Harbours Association.

The association, an industry group under the Ministry of Transport, said the ports, which also include Ningbo, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Xiamen, Dalian and Qingdao, confirmed container traffic at the eight ports also dropped 19.8 per cent last month from a year earlier.

The eight ports account for over half of China’s trade in containers, suggesting that China’s trade last month also shrank by a fifth.

Last week, the eight ports reported an increase of 4.7 per cent in total traffic from a week earlier, when traffic had increased by 40.2 per cent.

China’s General Administration of Customs is scheduled to release China’s import and export data for the first two months next week, which would offer an official measure of how the coronavirus has disrupted trade.

In the past, the customs published January and February data separately, but from this year, will follow China’s statistics practises on other indicators, including retail sales and industrial production.

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