Online freight index, Feightos, has confirmed that as quarantine periods have come to a close staff have returned to work in Chinese factories with the “vast majority of factories are back online.”
However, many of these facilities, although they are operating are operating at lower capacity than would normally be the case, many at around 80%, according to Freightos.
“Inter-province trucking, which last week was a major pain point, has also benefited from these developments and is now operating at about 80% capacity as well,” added the company.
According to Freightos the latest China to US rates are heavily impacted by production’s slow recovery.
- China-US West Coast prices (FBX01 Daily) rose by 2% since last week to US$1331/FEU. Rates are 13% behind last year’s prices for this week.
- China-US East Coast prices (FBX03 Daily) fell by 1% to US$2550/FEU. This rate trails last year’s rate by 7%.
Even as Chinese factories restart production, some lines are still cancelling services, with the latest, OOCL announcing two more void voyages, on 6 March. They are as follows:
Pacific China Central 1 (PCC1)
Port rotation: Ningbo > Shanghai > Long Beach > Pusan > Ningbo
Void sailing from Ningbo on March 28
Gulf Coast China 2 (GCC2)
Port rotation: Shanghai > Ningbo > Xiamen > Yantian > Houston > Mobile > Tampa > Shanghai
Void sailing from Shanghai on March 23.
While German operator Hapag-Lloyd also announced blank sailings:
The line added that any export cargo would be rolled to the next available services.
