The new covid outbreak in China is adding chaos to the supply chains

Recently, China eased some of the covid restrictions, and this had helped the country’s supply chain, but the sudden surge in covid cases due to the new virus has again disrupted the supply chain and the nation is struggling to cope. Alice Tang, the China-Europe land transport planner at ITS Cargo, stated that the virus is spreading really fast in the last few weeks and colleagues are falling prey to it. Most of the forwarders are worried as 70% of their workers are infected and work is completely halted. Thus, many of the logistics companies have planned to start the New Year early to complete the pending shipments. She further added that the silver lining here is that most of the markets are closed down for Christmas and even China’s orders are down.

The latest update from Linerlytica stated that the effect is also seen in the plummeting sea freight rates, and the liners and carriers are managing with declining rates. It further said that even SCFI has recorded the lowest rates since July and there is a collapse in the container freight rates. Linerlytica said that carriers are also denying to commit to more permanent capacity cuts and that will little not be very helpful for the rate prospects in 2023 as early contracts signed so far are 70% lesser as compared to the previous year.