China’s strict Covid restrictions are causing global supply chain issues

China’s strict Covid restrictions have once again wreaked havoc on the global supply chain.

China’s strict Covid restrictions are hampering global trade, with one in ten items stuck in the nations’ ports.

Blockages in global trade have surged due to their highest level since last September. The delay has been caused mostly by coronavirus restrictions in one of the country’s busiest ports – Shanghai.

The communist nation is persisting with a ‘zero Covid’ policy, despite the latest outbreak being the milder Omicron variant.

The draconian measures see people - including children - removed from their homes and placed into quarantine facilities if they test positive, even if they are asymptomatic.

This is having a knock-on effect on China’s ports, with a shortage of dockyard workers and truck drivers quickly growing.

Containers stacked at a port in Lianyungang in China's eastern Jiangsu province Picture: AFP.

The communist nation is persisting with a ‘zero Covid’ policy despite the latest outbreak being the milder Omicron variant. Picture: Bloomberg

Congestion in the North Sea has skyrocketed to the peak hit during the supply crisis last year at around 1.5 per cent of global capacity.

“The main development of March is the reappearance of shipping congestion in the ports of Asia and the North Sea,” Liberum analyst Joachim Klement told The Telegraph.

“Although we have already seen the effect of the Ukraine war on the resurgence of congestion, other effects are yet to come.

“Effects such as rising fuel costs, carrier boycotts, and rail-to-sea conversions are yet to be reflected in shipping costs increases.”

According to data from Bloomberg, almost 500 ships were stuck outside Shanghai.

Community volunteers wearing personal protective equipment guide residents queuing to get tested for the Covid-19 coronavirus in a compound during a Covid-19 lockdown in Shanghai. Picture: AFP.

The chaos at ports is expected to stoke inflation pressures across the globe.

Deutsche Bank said global supply chain problems would be part of a “very strong cocktail” causing inflation in the UK to surge above 8 per cent until next year.

The tense scenes at the ports have been echoed in Shanghai, with locals furious about the government‘s imposed Covid restrictions.

The city’s 25 million residents and an army of volunteers clad in white hazmat suits – known as the “big whites” – have clashed.

A community volunteer. Picture: AFP.

Overnight, shocking footage emerged from the locked-down metropolis that shows just how fraught the relationship between the Covid officials and residents has become.

In it, angry residents are seen shoving hazmat-clad “big whites” in the street before the volunteers savagely beat them with poles and scuffles break out.

It is not the first time tensions have boiled over in this current lockdown, which has been in place for more than four weeks.

Disturbing videos on social media show desperate scenes inside China’s largest city, which has been placed under increasingly harsh restrictions as Omicron cases continue to rise and the city records its first officially recognised Covid deaths.