New research shows Chinese ports have performed much better than their American and European counterparts in turning shipping containers around.
The median turn-around time for a container at a Chinese port in 2021 was five days, down from 61 in 2020. That compared to a median of 50 days at U.S. ports in 2021, according to research compiled by the German online shipping platform Container Exchange. U.K. ports averaged (median) a turnaround delay of 51 days last year, while the figure in the United Arab Emirates – a major shipping hub – was 40 days. Indian ports reported a median delay of 22 days.
Even as China tightens COVID-19-related restrictions at its ports in the run-up to the start of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, containers arriving in Asian ports are being redeployed at “record speeds,” according to Container Exchange CEO Johannes Schlingmeier. However, he said European and U.S. importers continue to struggle to get containers for their shipments out of China unless they’ve planned ahead.
Chinese ports – and seafood companies using them – have experienced delays caused by extra COVID-19-related inspections and sterilization procedures. And a new outbreak of Covid in the port city of Tianjin, a major locus for container trans-Pacific container traffic, could impact container turnaround times there.
China’s zero-COVID policy has become a source of frustration for some seafood traders, with China’s insistence on locking down any outbreak has created trading difficulties. Seafood executives based in Beijing and Shanghai told SeafoodSource entrance to the country has become difficult and subject to three-week quarantines, and both expressed growing frustration at the absence of an exit plan that will allow China to reopen.
China has justified its zero-COVID policy as a safeguard for its healthcare system, which is still threadbare in poorer regions. China has a vaccination rate of 80 percent of its adult population, and its country’s domestically developed vaccines have proven effective at limiting hospitalization, though not infection.
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