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Waiting for clearance
: Yangshan deep water port in southern Shanghai
Photo: Xu Haixin/Imaginechina via ZUMA Press/dpa
The people of Shanghai have been waiting for this day for a long time.
The lockdown with the strict protective measures against the corona virus ends this Wednesday - after two long months.
Life in the city of 25 million is set to start again, with shops, schools and factories open, Shanghai's Deputy Mayor Zong Ming announced.
It is news that not only the residents of the Chinese economic metropolis welcome with relief, but also many companies worldwide.
Shanghai is not only an important hub for serving the Chinese market, for example for international car manufacturers and their suppliers.
Shanghai also operates the largest port in the world, both in terms of cargo and container handling.
If things get stuck here, the impact can be huge.
And so the long lockdown had repeatedly led to delays and failures in the already tense global supply chains.
But the problems will probably not be resolved any time soon.
The supply bottlenecks, from which 77 percent of all German companies suffered according to a current ifo survey in May, will continue for the time being.
The logistical situation around the port of Shanghai remains tense - according to the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, around three percent of the global container freight capacity is backing up in front of the port facilities these days.
A gigantic traffic jam at sea.
"All ships that can transport containers are in use"
In particular, the logistics on the land side have to start, the flow of goods to the port is slowing down significantly in some cases.
According to the Association of German Shipowners (VDR), more than 100 ships are currently waiting to be cleared off Shanghai.
The waiting times for a berth have already been significantly reduced, but it will still take some time before the usual speed is reached.
"We are seeing the first signs of relaxation in the container port of Shanghai," says
Martin Kröger
, General Manager of the VDR.
It will be some time before this can also be felt in Europe.
"Currently, all ships that can transport containers are in use."
German companies are urgently waiting for the deliveries, especially in industry.
According to the Munich-based ifo Institute, 91.5 percent of German machine builders were affected by bottlenecks in May, closely followed by the electrical engineering and automotive industries.
Every second company said the lockdowns in China had further worsened the situation.
Shipping manager Kröger now warns against overly high hopes for a quick return to normality.
"The shipping companies are doing everything in their power to transport the cargo volumes expected from the reopening of production in China," he says: "But when ports are congested and containers have been on the road in the production country for much longer, then the shipping companies are ultimately powerless ."
Hanja Maria Richter
, an expert at the Hapag Lloyd shipping company for fleet management, describes the situation from her own experience: "The problem is not only with the ships and the port, the overall situation in the Shanghai region plays a role," she says.
"Companies could not produce, sometimes we only got half of the usual cargo delivered to the ships."
One problem: In Shanghai there were no truck drivers who had a ban on going out in their respective residential area.
This not only affects the port, but also all hinterland traffic.
The connection to storage and production facilities is interrupted.
"That's why we often headed for other ports, such as the one in Ningbo, for our customers so that they can get their goods at all," says Richter about the use of the Hapag-Lloyd shipping company, of whose more than 150 liner services about a quarter travel via Shanghai.
Significantly longer waiting times in Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg
However, Richter is currently optimistic about the situation: "The port in Shanghai itself has actually worked well the whole time. At the moment we are only seeing delays of 24 to 48 hours, that's not much."
The basic problem lies in the global disruption of supply chains.
This is also a consequence of two years of the Covid pandemic.
"Many ports in the world were closed for a long time. The problems in the Suez Canal are still having an impact. And now, of course, there are also the consequences of the Ukraine war," said Richter.
All in all, this leads to severe delays.
"In Rotterdam, Antwerp and Hamburg, some of our ships are now waiting much longer than in Shanghai."
According to the shipowners' association, this development could drag on for even longer due to the backlog of freighters off Shanghai.
"It is currently difficult to predict when the situation will return to normal," says CEO Kröger
. "
It depends largely on whether other ports will close in the coming months or whether the production of goods in Asia will slow down again."
That's entirely possible.
Because the highly contagious omicron variant could soon flare up again in Shanghai or other parts of China after successful containment.
That would be another major setback for global supply chains.