Shanghai, the Chinese coastal city has some of the busiest seas and airports in the world. Shanghai began a lockdown of half of its area on Monday, Mar. 8 due to the coronavirus situation and imposed a four-day lockdown on the other half from Friday, Apr. 1, with testing being conducted in two phases. While keeping airports and deep-water ports open, it imposed strict movement restrictions, banned unauthorized vehicles from the streets and asked people not to leave their homes.
"Freight services to and from Shanghai will be severely affected by 30% until April 5 due to the lockdown in Shanghai's Pudong and Puxi areas," Maersk, the world's second-largest container carrier, said in a client advisory on Monday.
Warehouses in Shanghai will be closed until Friday, it added. "As a result, delivery times will be longer and there may be increased transport costs such as detours and highway tolls."
U.S.-based freight and warehousing company SEKO Logistics said factories in the neighboring province of Zhejiang chose to ship out of Ningbo port rather than Shanghai.
