The Chinese Golden Week holiday is approaching. It starts with the Mid-Autumn Festival on Friday 29th September, followed by the National Day holidays that will see office closures during the first week of October, i.e. Monday 02 to Saturday 07 October 2023.
Colless Young’s agents in China have asked that clients help them pre-plan any shipments that are expected to leave China around that time and advise them before 27 September – especially in the case of any DG consignments that require special declarations.
Hong Kong has shorter holiday period: 30 September to 02 October 2023.
We expect that regular working hours will be maintained in Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and other regions around Asia.
Chinese factories will be closed and we know that traditionally the impact reaches for up to three weeks following the holiday, because factory workers return to their home-towns, quite often very far from their work-place.
We have been alerted to the probability that carriers will impose ‘blank sailings’ (see more at this LINK) although industry sources, such as Sea-Intelligence and Maritime Executive are predicting that this year carriers will wait as long as possible to adjust their scheduling during this holiday.
As we wrote recently, many importers rely on a Just In Time (JIT) supply chain strategy and we recommend that, for them, a two-week buffer should be built in to ensure that additional stress is not placed on an arrival date.
Vessel schedules, as always, are subject to change without notice. There could well be schedule disruptions with carriers changing vessels at the last minute.
This is the final major holiday of the calendar year in China after the previous celebrations at Lunar New Year, May Day then Dragon Boat around mid-year.
For more information about international trade and shipping – whether with China or elsewhere around the globe – contact us here at Colless Young. As licensed Customs Brokers and International Freight Forwarders we offer correct, professional advice on all your import and export transactions. We are based in Brisbane and provide a complete range of logistics services, for both airfreight and sea cargo through all Australian ports and airports.
