SOURCE / ECONOMY
Shipping delays, higher costs loom amid Christmas export season
By Yin Yeping Published: Jun 06, 2021 07:58 PM
A wharf in Yantian port zone of Shenzhen port in south China s Guangdong Province. File Photo: Xinhua
Traders and logistics firms are coping with longer waiting times and greater challenges to ship goods after some ports in South China s Guangdong Province, the top trading and manufacturing region for the country, encounter backlogs ahead of a busy Christmas export season due to tighter epidemic prevention measures amid new COVID-19 cases.
At Yantian Port, which is responsible for more than one-third of Guangdong s foreign trade and one-fourth of China s trade with the US, the butterfly effect has begun to emerge with slow port operations, crowded docks and delayed shipping dates, industry insiders told the Global Times on Sunday.
The fierce new COVID-19 wave across Southeast Asia - home to about one-fourth of the world s population - has prompted some manufacturing orders originally sent to the region to shift to China in recent months, in what could be the start of a long-term trend of production relocation as a result of the pandemic, according to factories and industry analysts.