Taiwan at Critical Point - Covid19, Drought, Shipping

Over the past few weeks, new developments in Taiwan has prompted us to take extra precautions for all ongoing and planned supply chain projects in bicycle and e-bike manufacturing.

COVID-19

This week, Taiwan is starting to see an increase in local infections which are multiplying daily. Should the threshold for nationwide lockdowns be reached, which may be a matter of days, all supply chain factories will be facing mandatory shut down for weeks.

DROUGHT

Taiwan is experiencing one of the worst droughts in recent times. The shortage of water supply will worsen in the next week due to lack of rainfall. Lack of water supply will affect some production related to painting and anodizing as the factories will be unable to continue production due to mandatory stoppage of water availability.

SHIPPING

Lack of availability for shipping containers is causing huge demand and increased prices. Availability for shipping to EU and USA is very tight. Dangerous Goods classifications such as e-bikes and batteries have near zero availability in general this month. We advise all clients to plan seaborne shipping schedules in advance.

Air freight has also been severely affected since last week due to COVID-19 related issues. There are significantly fewer long haul flights to EU and USA.