On April 23, news spread online that “Express giants in Europe and America announced the suspension of postal parcel services to China”. For a while, the suspension of cross-border commodity transactions became a concern for all sectors of society.
On April 24, several international express giants such as FedEx and UPS issued official statements stating that their operations were normal, and rumors of service suspensions were untrue.
FedEx told the Global Times that its international express freight center located at Shanghai Pudong International Airport has maintained normal operation during the recent epidemic period to ensure normal export business and promote the recovery and development of global trade.
Given the improvement in the situation in Shanghai, FedEx will resume accepting import international express shipments to Shanghai Pudong International Airport from April 25. In addition, the Asia-Pacific transit center at Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport is also operating normally.
In addition, DHL Express told the Global Times that it is actively coordinating its fleet to ensure the closed-loop operation of its North Asia hub located at Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
UPS also issued a statement stating that its two transit centers in Shanghai and Shenzhen are still in operation and provide services to customers on the premise of meeting local epidemic control regulations.
Although these foreign express giants have refuted rumors of suspending services to China, there have been some localized and regional service adjustments.
UPS announced on April 12 that it has decided to suspend international air freight imports from the United States to Shanghai and the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region in East China.
On the same day, DHL announced on its website that it has suspended inbound express services to Shanghai as well as the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, and Anhui, waiting for further notice.
FedEx announced on April 13 that it will suspend import express services transferred from Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Jiangxi provinces via Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
“Our business has been affected to some extent, but we have transferred some goods that were originally shipped from Shanghai Port to the ports of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, and we try to avoid logistics problems as much as possible,” said commercial market DHgate to the Global Times.
Japan Post has suspended international mail to China. Japan Post’s notice shows that packages sent from Japan to China via EMS, air, and sea will be suspended from April 22, but letter mail can still be accepted normally. At present, the official restart time has not been determined.
Japan Post said that the reason for the suspension of acceptance was that due to the reduction of flights and ships to China, it was unable to guarantee sufficient transportation capacity, and non-air delivery could take up to 12 weeks at most.
The epidemic has made it extremely difficult for overseas express delivery to mainland China!
However, Wu Minghua, a senior industry analyst in Shanghai, said: “As the government increases the supply chain facilitation efforts in epidemic prevention and control, it can be seen from the reopening of most expressways that the situation is improving.”
He expects that the suspended international express services will soon resume, especially in major production and trade hub markets such as the Yangtze River Delta, which is a loss that no international express company can afford. “