Chinese authorities are currently fighting a new wave of infections and in Shanghai, that means an introduction of the strictest lockdowns since the virus first broke out in Wuhan.
The people of Shanghai are not allowed to go to work and the closure is creating major problems for companies that produce goods in China with production largely stopped in most places. Sand Future, which produces high-pressure cleaners at its Shanghai plant, is also affected by the situation, and to keep production going, 40 employees have gone into isolation.
Owner Allan Sand says to TV2 News, “40 of our employees chose to go into isolation at the factory. So the first ten days of this lockdown we could produce from the pieces we had left.”
So far, the closure has not cost Allan Sand money, as the company has not yet had any orders canceled. But it creates a backlog that must be caught up with – and already now, it will take several months, Allan Sand says
“At the moment we are missing a turnover of one and a half to two million a day. If we do not get it, it will be costly.”
The closure has also hit Shanghai’s port which is another bottleneck in one of world trade’s main arteries, deputy director of Danske Rederier Jacob Clasen says.
“Some items are severely delayed such as flat screens, iPads, and clothes, but also deliveries to European production, so it is not only consumers who are affected,” he says.
“Even though the port actually works, there are huge problems with getting goods to and from the port, because there is simply a lack of drivers to drive the trucks,” Jacob Clasen adds.
According to Jacob Clasen, the situation is “very critical” as it comes at a time when world trade is still struggling to pick up speed after the closures of recent years. “It delays the normalization, for which we have had different forecasts. Most recently, we had probably thought that it would be normalized during this year, but now it seems that it may well be later,” Jacob Clasen says.
