The situation does not seem to be calming down. Yet, the effects on world trade and thus logically on the forwarding and logistics industry have intensified:
Labor and infrastructure situation
Labor is only slowly coming back to work but only limited number of employees physically go to office. There is limited connectivity.
Offices in China have restrictions such as health check at entry/exit, no use of public infrastructure such as toilets, shopping for food and drinks. Airconditioning has been switched off.
Truck-drivers are missing. Only approx 30% of the truck dirvers are working.
The infrastructure in most ports (such as Shanghai) are closed for cargo coming from Mainland China. They accept it, but are putting it into a 14 days quarantine.
Most airlines have already extended their suspension of flights from/to China. As an example, British Airlines is not flying until end of April 2020, Lufthansa and Swiss until end of March 2020.
China outbound business
Production is almost at zero and if cargo has been produced it cannot go out.
Inland transportation to the ports very limited.
Ports have tough security measures in place that will cause delays.
China inbound business
Imports to China to non-critical areas can happen but with massive delays.
No transportation into critical areas, also because drivers will not go there.
Equipment and capacity situation
Worrying shortage of equipment expected in Europe. While Reefers are already sold out, we expect similar situation for Dry Containers very soon.
Carriers are managing their capacity with numerous blank sailings affecting both directions.
Shipping lines advice on some emerging quarantine requirements imposed by regulatory bodies for vessels which have visited or are from China.