Ships are backing up Yantian-style off southern Vietnam as Covid-19 wreaks further havoc on Asian supply chains.

The Vietnamese government put the whole southern region into lockdown on Sunday as Covid-19 cases have soared recently. Ho Chi Minh City had already been in lockdown for a week prior with most of its terminals now severely congested. Further south, many ships are at anchor off Vung Tau, an important feeder and transhipment hub, waiting for berth space to open up.

Many Vietnamese factories have been forced to close in recent weeks. In the whole of 2020, Vietnam only had 1,465 Covid-19 cases for the whole year across a population of around 98m, making it one of the best performing countries in the world against the pandemic. However, latest daily data from Monday shows Vietnam had 4,843 new cases in one day, triple the whole of 2020.

In late May a Covid-19 outbreak at Yantian port, one of southern China’s most important export hubs, caused havoc to liner scheduling. The subsequent four-week cut to port productivity at the eastern Shenzhen port is still playing out in terms of global liner calls.