Marintec China falls victim to Beijing’s zero-Covid strategy

Marintec China falls victim to Beijing’s zero-Covid strategy
Sam Chambers November 18, 2021 https://splash247.com/marintec-china-falls-victim-to-beijings-zero-covid...

With 19 days to go until this year’s largest shipping exhibition, the authorities in Shanghai have taken the decision to postpone this year’s Marintec China.

The exhibition, second only to SMM in Hamburg in terms of square metres sold, was scheduled to run from December 7 until December 10. It has now been put back by six months.

China was the first country to impose harsh restrictions to combat the pandemic and it will be one of the last to ease them, its zero-Covid strategy seeing cities rushed into lockdown on the back of small Covid outbreaks. The port city of Dalian is one of the most recent examples of this heavy handed tactics to keep the illness at bay, with much of the northeastern city forced into lockdown last week.

China’s zero-Covid strategy is unlikely to change soon with authorities keen to ensure the 2022 Winter Olympics pass without a major breakout.

Shipping’s physical event calendar has been decimated by the Covid-19 pandemic with London International Shipping Week among very few sizeable get-togethers to have taken place over the past two years.

The next big event on the international shipping calendar is Nor-Shipping in Oslo, which has shifted from its traditional June slot to January 2022 as a one-off winter gathering. Norway, like many European nations, is currently battling a sizeable fourth wave of the illness.