Newsletter – November 19, 2021

AIR FREIGHT UPDATES

FedEx is dropping Hong Kong as its Asia base for pilots

freightwaves.com
FedEx Express is abandoning its pilot base in Hong Kong because of restrictive COVID health and travel rules that make it difficult for the parcel carrier’s airline to operate efficiently. Read more here (login required).

OCEAN FREIGHT UPDATES

Operational Interruptions at Vancouver, Canada – update 2

hapag-lloyd.com
Flooding, landslides and mudslides have forced several city evacuations in British Columbia and shut down key highway and rail routes into and out of Vancouver. As a follow-up to our news published on November 17, 2021, please find below the latest updates. Read more here.

Cargoes back up across Canada after ‘storm of the century’

splash247.com
The Port of Vancouver, the busiest maritime gateway in Canada, has become a de facto island after the largest storm in a century to hit British Columbia took out road, rail and pipeline links.
Miners, retailers and agricultural exporters have scrambled to find alternative ports in the wake of the storms that have left Vancouver port stranded. Water and landslides have blocked the tracks of the nation’s two major railways and washed away parts of the main east-west road artery, the Trans-Canada Highway, while the the Trans Mountain pipeline, which takes crude from Alberta to the Pacific Coast, remains closed for a fifth day. Read more here.

China adds new supply chain kink by curtailing vessel tracking in local waters

splash247.com
China’s new Personal Information Protection Law, which came into effect at the start of the month, has sent international ship tracking organisations into a spin.
The data law has seen ships disappear from some tracking services when they enter Chinese waters.
“All of a sudden we do not know when ships are leaving and from where, and we also don’t have the full picture on port congestion which AIS offers us,” Anastassis Touros, AIS network team leader at MarineTraffic, one of the world’s top vessel tracking firms, told Reuters. Read more here.

US ports making progress towards easing supply chains

lloydsloadinglist.com
US west coast container ports appear to be making significant progress towards easing congestion of loaded and empty containers, and retail shelves and warehouses are currently close to pre-pandemic stock levels, according to analysis by the White House. Read more here.

Cabotage rules relaxed for boxes transhipped from Shanghai to local ports

theloadstar.com
China’s state council announced yesterday that international liner operators can transport containers transhipped from Shanghai’s Yangshan to the ports of Qingdao, Tianjin and Dalian, temporarily lifting cabotage restrictions.
The pilot scheme is aimed at developing the Lin-gang Special Area, part of the China (Shanghai) pilot free trade zone, and will last until 31 December 2024. Read more here (login required).

CANADA BUSINESS  GOVERNMENT UPDATES

Aircraft and troops move in to help as Vancouver is cut off by extreme weather

theloadstar.com
The Canadian military has deployed transport planes, helicopters and several hundred troops to assist with the evacuation of Vancouver where, since Monday, flooding and mudslides have left much of the city cut off from both road and rail.
On Wednesday, British Columbia’s minister of public safety, Mike Farnworth, declared a provincial state of emergency for 14 days, with one confirmed death, and four people missing. Read more here (login required).