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Australians will have to exercise extreme patience for delivery of goods they’ve ordered as an image of shipping traffic off China demonstrates,
The plot map of idle shipping containers queued up in a Shanghai coastal ‘traffic jam’ reveals the extent of the situation, delaying an estimated 10 per cent of pending global deliveries.
The nation’s east coast port is the busiest in the world but China’s attempt at a zero-Covid policy has been blamed for the vast queue of ships stuck in the transit queue.
A stark image revealing the state of the world’s busiest port in China shows ships sitting it out in queues as China chases a zero-Covid policy, locking down 180million residents despite relatively low infection rates
The world’s busiest shipping port in Shanghai (pictured last year) is now bottlenecked with thousands of ships sitting idly as Australians face lengthy delivery delays ‘throughout 2022’
The graphic shows thousands of ships clogged in the 60km-wide port area, which is accustomed to handling 2,000 ships a month and a colossal 40million shipping containers.
David Leaney, a supply chain expert at the Australian National University, predicted the backlog will cause delays for Australia throughout 2022.
‘It is impacting a lot of different items, if you’ve ordered whitegoods, furniture, clothes, you’re in for major delays,’ Mr Leaney told the Today Show on Saturday.
The trickle-down effect of the delays are likely to be higher import costs, inflation and interest rates.
Mr Leaney said the time delays depended on what item you have purchased.
‘In terms of delays, we are talking weeks to months … If you have ordered a larger item, or particularly something that has a microchip in it because they have separate supply chain issues – you are in for quite lengthy delays,’ Mr Leaney said.
Even if the Covid situation in China was to improve drastically tomorrow, buyers will still face more delays as the ‘traffic jam’ and delivery backlog takes time to clear.
‘I think we will see delays for the rest of 2022,’ Mr Leaney said.
News of the hold-ups came after car buyers faced similar waits for their products, with the average delay for new vehicle arrivals ballooning to 123 days.
Buyers of models such as the Kia Sorento, Toyota RAV4 and Volkswagen Tiguan are the worst affected, with the situation not expected to change for the rest of 2022.
Meanwhile, Chinese authorities continue to pursue the zero-Covid policy, with around 180million Chinese in lockdown, including 25million in Shanghai alone.
Brave Shanghainese have been videoed knocking down metal fences built to trap them in lockdown as an expert said their economy had tanked to a 30-year low.
Top supply chain expert David Leaney (pictured on the Today Show) said Aussies should expect to wait a year for a new car
Source: Daily Mail
