SIMIC

Katherine Si | Jun 09, 2021

The Chinese ship repair base has lost over 200 international vessels repair orders had cancelled at major yards in Zhoushan as international owners with vessels arriving from countries with renewed Covid outbreaks and variants are unable to get permission to bring their ships in.

Starting from the end of April, several Covid-19 infection cases were found on international ships arriving at Chinese port at the Chinese ports and restrictions on vessels arrivals were increased by the authorities.

Related: Delays of 14 days expected at Yantian port due to tighter Covid controls

To strengthen the virus prevention and control, Zhoushan is carrying more strict examinations on crew changes and ship voyage tracking, and as a result almost no new international ships had been sent to Zhoushan for repair work in recent days.

Some of the countries where there have severe Covid-19 outbreaks are on the list suspending approval for ship entry.

Related: Chinese ship repair output soars 48% boosted by scrubber and ballast water retrofits

Policies for Zhoushan’s ship repair industry are going to be reviewed later this month, hopefully it could bring some good news to the repair yards, an official from a Zhoushan ship repair company said to local media.

In 2020  Zhoushan yards repaired some 1,900 overseas vessels. The number is likely to fall this year if current pandemic controls remain in place into the second half the year.