Press Room

Dear Valued Clients,

At the end of last week there were rumours circulating in China of a Coronavirus outbreak on a vessel at the port of Yantian and potentially causing disruptions at one of the terminals at the port.

Last night AU time we were notified by our China office that an outbreak as spread across parts of the Port and as such the local Port Authorities decided to block the entry of all export containers yesterday afternoon. Inevitably this is going to cause massive space and equipment challenges not just for the port of Yantian but also for Shekou Port as inevitably shippers try to pivot and rebook/redirect cargo to other ports. We also anticipate this will also now start to put more of an upward pressure on already forecasted increases to shipping rates, not just for Sea Freight but also for Air freight as supply chains try to move goods urgently that cannot afford to be caught in the congestion over the coming days.

NEOLINK will be reaching out to customers that have orders where production is being finalised in the coming week to plan ahead as best as we can. If you do have orders in production with your suppliers that our team are not aware of, please let us know ASAP so we can try to come up with alternatives and pivot to avoid the congestion where we can.

Our strong recommendation for any critical orders that were planned for sea freight in the south of china in the next two weeks is to start looking at air freight options given the below.

See articles below:

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202105/1224155.shtml

https://lloydslist.maritimeintelligence.informa.com/LL1136900/Yantian-Port-halts-entry-for-export-containers

https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/yantian-port-reports-a-new-covid-19-case-related-to-the-freighter-operator-case/