Holidays in China: consequences for your planning

22 September 2016

Golden Week

From the 1st until the 7th of October, China will celebrate the ‘Golden Week’. During these holidays, everyone in the country will be off of work for 7 days. This might have some consequences for your schedule that we would like to inform you about.

High demand on shipping capacity

No ships will depart from China during the Golden Week. Therefore, everyone who wants to ship goods from China is in a hurry to do so before the start of the holiday season. This causes a high demand on the shipping capacity. If you do not book your cargo in time, there might not be any space available. If this happens, your goods won’t be shipped until after the Golden Week. Please take this into account.

Blank sailings

Even after the Golden Week, it might be more difficult to ship your goods. Because the people in the factories won’t be working either during the holidays, there will be less cargo that needs to be shipped afterwards. For this reason, some cargo ships will decide not to set sails. Which ‘blank sailings’ will be scheduled, is not known at this time.

Mid-autumn festival

The mid-autumn festival from September 15th until the 17th, is also a national holiday in China. Offices will be closed during these days, or operate with a skeleton staff.