The COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak affected China and the country decided to extend its Lunar New Year Holidays. Holidays were extended to 10th Feb 2020, so the Chinese ports were closed for any shipping. Most of the airlines and shipping lines stopped working in China.
Shipping lines published the updates stating that they were taking appropriate steps across thew global networks in order to ensure the health and safety of their staff and the continuity of high levels of service to their customers.
General Status
The majority of provinces are now resuming work. Local authorities require enterprises to submit applications for approval to resume work, demonstrating their capability in ensuring strict safety processes and maintaining adequate hygiene for the consumable stock, etc. Labour shortage remains an issue for many factories, due to local quarantine policies.
Office and Counter service:
Most of the shipping lines instructed their employees to work at home as the 1st choice unless they have to go to the office.
So the biggest impact is for the production line and trucking company, as most of their manpower is not able to back to the coastal cities when their inland hometown is under strict in and out of control and most companies were pending government approval for resuming to work.
See the following status and explanation for strict limitations.
Strict limitations are given by govt. means:
a. Approval from Government to resume to work
b. Have enough stock for healthy products, like a mask, disinfectant fluid, thermometer.
c. Only allow a few parts of staffs to work at the same time
Airfreight market update:
Market volumes are low due to many factories are still closed. Even though space is limited as many airlines suspended their passenger flight services and temporary canceled some freighter flights, there is still space available ex most gateways.