On the eve of the Chinese new year and the Tet festival find our latest freight market news, our teams also wish you all a very happy lunar year and Tet festival!
On behalf of Bansard International Asia, we wish you a very good Tet Festival and a happy New Year of Ox! Please note that during these festivities our offices will be closed during their respective public holidays. However, we have staff on duty who will ensure the continuity of operations during this period. Please find below the public holiday's dates per Bansard countries and our brief summary of the transportation market in China:
- Mainland China, 11-to-17 FEB (Sun, 20 FEB as a working day)
- Hong Kong, 12-to-15 FEB
- Myanmar, 12-14 FEB (Union Day)
- Singapore, 12-14 FEB
- Thailand, 12-14 FEB
- Vietnam, 10-17 FEB
AIR FREIGHT
In North and Central China, bookings already placed will be lined for arrangements after resuming usual operations. In South China, Air Freight customs have all been limited and new shipments could be arranged only if we received your forecast before 9th Feb. From this week, several flights of AF/RU which we have BSA will be canceled until the recovery of Chinese New Year (CNY).
SEA FREIGHT
At present, all the new business from/to China during the CNY is limited and has to be postponed to 18th Feb. All the current shipments booked and confirmed will still follow the normal process. Factories have been closed and workers went back to their families. Therefore we are now in the situation of lacking drivers & containers, and the serious congestion in Yantian Port, shipping time are expected to be even longer.
For now, our team can only book post-CNY, in order to ensure capacity we recommend you to book your schedules as early as possible
RAIL FREIGHT
From the beginning of February, domestic logistics are basically closed except for delivery services. For the moment, due to the fact that the reception of goods has been entirely stopped at the depots, our teams do not have access to rail capacity during or before the CNY. For now, the plan for post-holiday has not yet announced by the qualified authorities.
ROAD
In most cities of China, it has shown that a large part of truck drivers have already returned to their families. Only 5-10% of truckers are expected to work over the next 2 weeks in Xiamen, Fuzhou, Yantian, and Nanjing. Among them, Shanghai got the most capacity which is 20%. We expect that some of the truckers will come back from the 18th and most of them will come back after the 27th of February (after the lantern festival in China)
COVID-19 SITUATION IN CHINA
Officially, China is still following the “zero cases” policy, on 9th Feb, the number of new infected Covid-19 patient in China was 0 (for two consecutive days), a testimony of the good control of the domestic epidemic. As the government has also drastically limited the movement of people between the different provinces during CNY, many workers remain at their production sites. An important temporary migration is still expected, but it will be much lower than the previous year. Therefore, we believe that most of the factories and facilities will recover quickly after the CNY, and the freight market in China will be in an organized situation.