How China’s export surge left the shipping industry with a hangover

SINCE early March, two of China’s largest container truck yards near the major port city of Ningbo in Zhejiang province have been filled with nearly 3,000 idle vehicles with no cargo to haul.

Traffic at the Hengpu and Beilun parking lots, which primarily serve the port, has dropped dramatically over the last two years, several truck drivers told Caixin. During the shipping boom in 2021, some drivers would make 27 cargo deliveries per month on average, they said. Now, they are happy if they can do two a week.  

The change only becomes more apparent in the port, where there are so many idle cargo containers that workers have nearly run out of places to stack them. “This area is almost full now, and many of the empty containers are being moved out,” said one terminal operator.