Shares in maritime firms across Asia slumped Thursday after US president Donald Trump announced a temporary travel ban from Europe in an effort to curb the spread of coronavirus in the US.
The 30-day ban, which comes into effect at midnight on Friday, threatens more disruptions to businesses and the global economy.
But Trump said the "strong but necessary" restrictions would not apply to the UK, were the number of covid-19 cases have reached 460.
The White House said that the ban only applies to the movement of people, not goods or cargo.
In Japan both Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) and NYK Line's shares were down 7%, while K Line's stock dropped by almost 10%.
In Hong Kong shares in container line OOIL were down 8.5% in early trading, while shares in supramax specialist Pacific Basin eased by 5%.
In Singapore Hong Kong port operator HPH Trust saw its shares lose 9%, while rig builder Sembcorp Marine was 8% lower.
“The travel ban from Europe has definitely taken everyone by surprise,” Khoon Goh, head of Asia Research at ANZ in Singapore told Reuters.
“Already we know the economic impact is significant, and with this additional measure on top it's just going to multiply the impact across businesses.
“This is something that markets had not factored in…it’s a huge near-term economic cost.”
Hirokazu Kabeya, chief global strategist at Daiwa Securities told Reuters: “In many European countries, the number of patients is increasing in a track similar to Italy. The US appears to be following that path.
“It now looks realistic to expect, within 10 days, those countries could have more than 10,000 patients.”
On Wednesday the US State Department said that the upcoming G7 conference in March will now be carried out via video teleconference instead of gathering in Pittsburgh due to an "abundance of caution".
Yesterday, also saw the Connecticut Maritime Association (CMA) postponed its annual International Shipping Forum until the summer due to the coronavirus.
The conference, which has attracted shipowners and others involved in maritime from around the world, will instead be held from 29 June to 1 July.
CMA said all participants and speakers currently registered for the conference, trade show and exhibition have automatically been re-booked for the June edition of the event.
However, a number include prominent Europeans including Intertanko managing director Katharina Stanzel and Knut Orbec-Nilssen, chief executive of marine at DNV-GL.
