Hong Kong’s freight forwarding industry hit by trade war, SCMP reports

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HONG KONG (Reuters) -Hong Kong’s freight forwarding industry is reeling from the U.S.-China trade war with 41% of container capacity from the city to North America’s west coast cancelled for the week starting May 12, the South China Morning Post reported.

Hong Kong, a global shipping hub which plays a key role in re-exporting goods, is likely to see a huge economic hit, the SCMP reported, quoting Joyce Tai, executive vice-president for worldwide partnerships at freight booking platform Freightos.

Tai said there would be a “huge economic hit” due to Hong Kong’s pass-through role, with the impact probably a lot heavier than on the mainland.

Washington and Beijing have been locked in a cat-and-mouse game over tariffs, with neither side willing to be seen to back down in a trade war that has roiled global markets and wreaked havoc on supply chains.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to impose punishing tariffs of 145% on many Chinese products saw Beijing respond with levies on imports of U.S. goods of 125%, as Beijing labelled Trump’s tariff strategy “a joke.”

The tit-for-tat increases stand to make goods trade between the world’s two largest economies impossible, analysts say, with import duties beyond about 35% potentially wiping out Chinese exporters’ profit margins and making American products in China similarly exorbitant.

Judah Levine, Freightos head of Research said that carriers were cancelling “very high levels of sailings that were scheduled from China to North America in the coming weeks,” according to the SCMP.

The paper also reported Sea-Intelligence, a supply chain research company, saying 32% of sailings would be cancelled in the coming two weeks.

(Reporting by Farah Master; Editing by Kate Mayberry)