Maersk warns Shanghai’s lockdown will hike transport costs
Shipping giant Maersk said today transport costs will continue to increase following Shanghai’s decision to lockdown.
Shanghai started going into lockdown yesterday, closing down half of the city while the other one will be be shut from Friday for a four-day testing exercise.
“Trucking service in and out (of) Shanghai will be severely impacted by 30 per cent due to a full lockdown on Shanghai’s Pudong and Puxi areas in turn until 5 April,” the company said today in an advisory.
Even though they kept airports and ports open, city authorities curbed the movement of goods and people, banning unapproved vehicles from streets and telling citizens to stay home. Warehouses will also remain closed until Friday.
“Consequently, there will be longer delivery time and a possible rise in transport costs such as detour fee and highway fee.”
China, who is seeing the highest number of Covid cases since the start of the pandemic, put restrictions on other industrial cities such as Changchun and Shenzhen, giving rise to long queues outside ports.