To address this issue, LA/LB introduced a large fee for containers with a dwell time of 9+ days starting on 15 November in order to push importers to clear their cargo. On 15 November, the start date was postponed by a week to 22 November. On 22 November, it was postponed to 29 November and so forth. On 3 January 2022, it was postponed for the eighth consecutive time to 10 January. Initially, the threat of a fee was sufficient to create some improvement. By end November, the pile of long-standing containers had been reduced by 37% compared to late October. This continued to improve and by 13 December, the reduction had reached 47%. However, since then, the number of long-standing containers has continued to grow and on 3 January, the improvement had dropped to 35% compared to late October. Hence, the final half of December and the first days of 2022 have essentially reversed all the improvements seen in early December, and the situation is now the same as in late November. From a global perspective, a comprehensive congestion index has been developed by Vespucci Maritime based on the biweekly customer advisories from HMM covering a wide range of terminals globally. The congestion index for North America reached a peak in late October following which some improvements were seen. However, over the past three weeks, the congestion index has been increasing and on 3 January, it reached a new record high. The congestion index for Europe remained high, but at least stable, from late August to early November. However, for the past five weeks, the index has been constantly rising and is now significantly above the levels seen earlier in 2021 which were caused by the Suez Canal effect. Asia is the only region with no increase in the congestion index coming into 2022. All in all, the data point in the same direction: congestion and bottleneck problems have worsened in the past few weeks. Looking ahead, these problems are likely to worsen even further. One element to consider is that with the Chinese New Year on 1 February, and with normal seasonality, there will be increased demand and thereby increased pressure on the supply chains in the coming weeks – on top of the existing congestion. The other element is the Chinese approach to handling COVID-19. China maintains a zero- tolerance policy and will shut down large areas when faced with even very few new infections. At the time of writing this in early January, there are already three situations that directly impact the container supply chains. The first situation is the closed land border crossing with Vietnam due to an outbreak which has left thousands of trucks waiting. The second situation is restrictions in an area of Ningbo. The port itself is not impacted, but it has led to the closure of multiple container depots as well as warehouses. Furthermore, even though trucks can move to and from the port, this requires a special permission which many do not have. The third situation is that 200 river pilots on the Yangtze River have been quarantined. This has significantly reduced river traffic connecting Shanghai to the inland parts of Shanghai. Not only does this impede the export of cargo from central China, it also impedes the movement of empty containers back into central China. It is a fact that the Omicron variant is more contagious than the previous variant of COVID-19. This also means that the risk of outbreaks in China is much higher than was the case throughout most
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