Corona Virus Update: Impact on Freight Industry

Dear Clients,

As you would be aware the coronavirus that has emerged from China is now having an impact to freight industry globally.

Many provincial governments in China have announced that the Lunar New Year holidays have been extended until Feb 9th with most offices currently due to resume work on February 10th. The Wuhan and Hubei governments at this stage however are in lock down and there is every possibility that the lock down may extend beyond February 9th.

Over the last 24 hours we have received advice that many of the airline carriers will be ceasing their import and export operations to/from China up until March 1st, however this is subject to change at anytime and we will keep you updated in due course.

Currently the Ocean carriers have not advised on any changes to their current export scheduling ex China to Australia, however it has now been confirmed that there are restrictions being applied to the arrival of vessels from China into AU.

For vessels that have called China and calling a NSW port, effectively immediately, the vessel will be held from berthing because as at this stage no pilot will be allowed to embark a vessel unless it has been at sea for a Minimum of 14 days.

For all other Australian ports it has been agreed that any vessel that sailed China on or after February 1st will again not be able to berth for until 14 days have eleapsed from departure.

Kind Regards

SILA Customer Service