Ship-repair yards in China's maritime service hub of Zhoushan are playing down talk of a resurgent Covid-19 crisis — but are pinning their hopes on an early end to local restrictions on foreign crews.
Many foreign-trading vessels have been blocked from calling at yards since the beginning of May — at a time when many regular dry dock surveys have been booked, with extended dates for installation of ballast-water treatment systems.
The restrictions also come as Beijing and local authorities are seeking to promote Zhoushan as an international shipping hub.
Vessels banned include those that have called in Indian or Bangladeshi ports, or mustered new crew members from those countries, in the last 90 days.
Lesser restrictions apply to those that have called in Brazil, Argentina, Iran, Turkey, Philippines, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, or Myanmar, or signed on crew members from there. Restrictions for the latter are set to expire on 28 June, but not those for India and Bangladesh.
Shipyard agents outside China have told TradeWinds that based on their interactions with yards they represent, they suspect the Covid-19 situation is more severe than the yards in Zhoushan admit.
Shipyard officials as well as third-party ship managers have confirmed reports of repair work diverted to competitors elsewhere in China — or, in some cases, as far afield as South Korea and Indonesia.
Yard officials have been reluctant to speak on record about the politically tinged subject, but one told TradeWinds that volumes in their docks are down by about half, and shipyard staff have been put to work doing maintenance of yard equipment.
Playing down the problems, the head of a large Zhoushan-based repair yard said his customers largely had time to make allowances for the restrictions, which were well publicised through agents before they came into force.
Empty dock space
“I cannot say it is a crisis for us, but our workload is going down,” he said. “Before the new regulations, our docks were full. Now more than half of our dock space is empty.
"Some of our customers have gone to other ports in China for work, but there is more rescheduling. Owners are postponing repairs until the beginning of July or until August."
Still, he said he held out hope that authorities might lift restrictions before some of them are scheduled to expire on 28 June.
The maritime services cluster of the Zhoushan archipelago depends overwhelmingly on foreign business, as it is anchored on ships that call at the area's transshipment terminals or passing there on their way to ports of the Yangtze River or northern China.
The Zhoushan International Marine Service Base project being promoted by Chinese authorities is meant to leverage the importance of the area's transshipment ports and repair yards to compete globally as bunkering and supply centres as well.
