Unctad's analysis of the coronavirus impact
Unctad also claims that it is too early to gauge the full economic and trade effects of the Coronavirus outbreak. However, shipping data, based on real-time observations of vessel positions (AIS) and information about the cargoes aboard those ships, already shows a change in the operational behaviour of container vessels.
Container ship visits to Chinese ports, measured both in number of vessels scheduled to call and their cumulative capacity in teu, plunged in late January and early February. At the same time, the ratio of missed port calls has risen sharply to levels usually seen in late February and March. Thus, this year, the traffic slowdown, with both fewer scheduled calls and more cancelled ones, is occurring much earlier.
This comes even though many airlines have announced cancelling flight services, reducing air cargo capacity and forcing manufacturers to switch to waterborne transportation even for higher-value and more time-sensitive cargo.
More significantly, the slowdown in port calls is occurring worldwide, not just in China. In the second half of January and early February, the drop in scheduled capacity that has been going on since about August of 2018 accelerated significantly.
The centrality of China to the movement of goods around the world explains this: if Chinese ports are not loading or discharging containers, there is no reason to stop at the port where the shipment is supposed to go to or come from. The move towards bigger container ships is another important factor at play: a missed port call now has a more profound impact on available capacity. (mw)