Plain sailing at Shanghai Port despite lockdown

The Shanghai International Port Group Co said on Sunday that there has no hold-ups at the facility in Shanghai despite the city's massive lockdown.

In response to reports that: "the number of ships waiting for loading and unloading at the Shanghai port has soared to more than 300," the group issued a firm denial on its WeChat official account.

It added that the misinformation has brought unnecessary worry to customers and industry players.

The group said that it has taken strict epidemic prevention measures, and production and operation of the port are going on as usual, with no congestion of container ships.

According to the monitoring of the group, the current operation of the port remains smooth and orderly, with the berthing efficiency significantly better than the overall level of 2021.

Since March 28, the average waiting time for container ships at Shanghai Port is less than 24 hours.

It emphasized that currently, all the production units at the port maintain normal 24-hour operations, except for those affected by extreme weather.

As affected by the current round of epidemic, some domestic and foreign trade enterprises have encountered new difficulties and certain unforeseen circumstances when arranging the import and export of goods onshore.

The group said it had started the emergency plan in the first place, and made every effort to keep supply chains and logistics chains open and stable.

In 2021, the container throughput of Shanghai Port exceeded 47 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) , ranking first globally for 12 consecutive years despite the COVID-19 impact on the shipping industry, port data showed.

The port handled 32 million TEUs in foreign trade and 6.3 million TEUs in domestic trade last year, while the throughput of international transit containers at the port exceeded 6 million TEUs for the first time.