Ronald José Rubio Ampueda - Activity recovers at the port of Shanghai

Ronald José Rubio Ampueda indicates that according to the authorities of the Asian giant, Shanghai is already operating at 80% of its pre-closure levels after the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to those who keep the accounts of world trade, the daily throughput of containers in Shanghai has already reached 95%.

This approach to normalcy, after another two-month shutdown disrupted supply chains in China and around the world, brings some reassurance to the markets.

Some estimate that traffic is returning to about 80% of the levels before the COVID-19 closures at that location.

Times at the port

Average wait times at the Port of Shanghai for container ships are also estimated to have dropped to 31 hours since the beginning of this month, down from 69 hours averaged at the end of April.

"We always thought China could resolve supply-chain disruptions quickly; but this is even better than our optimistic view," Wei Yao, head of Asia Pacific research and chief economist at Societe Generale SA, told Bloomberg news agency.

"The question going forward is demand: western consumers continue to shift from goods to services and are increasingly pressured by inflation. External demand is likely to weaken from here, which means that the recovery in domestic demand will be even more important but challenging, given zero COVID," he added.

Nevertheless, the number of container waiting hours remains four hours above the average of the last three years.

China's trade

On the other hand, China's trade with the rest of the world increased by 9.6% year-on-year in May.

China's exports grew at a double-digit pace in May, representing a monthly increase of 12.6% and 16.9% compared to the same month in 2021.

In addition, Chinese imports also expanded for the first time in a quarter, rising from 3.1% to 4.1% year-on-year.

Nevertheless, China posted a trade surplus of €73.523 billion last month, well above the €54.709 billion that was forecast.

Last May, China's economy was slowing, largely because of stringent shutdowns caused by the coronavirus, in turn threatening to slow global trade.

"The pandemic has a big impact on economic operations," Fu Linghui, spokesman for China's statistics bureau, admitted at the time.

Output restrictions to control the coronavirus caused some discouragement in the country and other countries due to bottlenecks in the supply of raw materials and intermediate products.

Ronald José Rubio Ampueda, Port of Shanghai
Huge container ships got stuck in front of the port of Shanghai in recent months, causing exports from that port to fall by 40%. But as of June this may have been reversed.