At last… Good news from China!

After endless bad news stories emerging from China – largely revolving around endless lockdowns – Mats Harborn, vice president Asia of the International Forum for Heavy Vehicle Transport & Technology (HVTT), reveals that some good news is finally emerging from the country.

There is one very good piece of news: China is relaxing its Covid-related entry rules to 7+3 days of quarantine. “This is an important step toward being able to live with the Coronavirus and sends an important signal that China wants to be an integral part of the global society,” says Harborn.

Transport is at the core of a functioning economy on both domestic and international fronts, so another piece of good news is that the Chinese harbours are now operating at near-to-normal levels. “One reason for high inflation pressure around the world has been supply chain disturbances caused by transport bottlenecks,” Harborn points out.

Continuing the theme of good news, he says it seems that the gradual easing of pandemic controls in China is having an immediate effect on its economy and for the first time in a year the Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) is above 50, indicating economic expansion. “Hopefully this will have a trickledown effect on the global economy with fewer bottlenecks and more stable supply chains,” he predicts.

A phenomenon that Harborn has observed over the past two-and-a-half years of global pandemic controls is a perception that society has come to a standstill. “Our attention has been very much focused on the negative side-effects of the pandemic, and recently the Russian-Ukrainian war. In the case of China, strict entry restrictions aimed at limiting the risk of the virus spreading from abroad have meant that very few foreigners have been able to visit China,” he points out. “Consequently, the first-hand knowledge about Chinese developments in these two-and-a-half years is very limited and fragmented. Company HQ have not been able to visit China, which delays strategic decision-making.”

He continues by noting, “This is very unfortunate because in the area of transport and logistics China has kept developing and innovating at unbroken speed. Great progress has been made in electrification, autonomous driving, and intelligent connected services. Such progress also includes relevant standards and regulations.”

What is of particular interest is the development of High Capacity Transport and positive developments have also taken place in this field. “It is fair to say that the two HVTT16 activities last year (an online symposium in September and a combined December exhibition and seminar in Qingdao) have provided an important push for a number of initiatives that will lead to a more efficient and sustainable transport ecosystem in China,” says Harborn.

As HVTT vice president, Harborn recently met with an important player in the Chinese transport industry. “He stated that as the technical content of transport equipment increases, so does its investment cost. Therefore, the cost of depreciation also goes up, which will give further impetus to transport companies to optimise the revenue-generating time of the equipment,” he points out. “In short: increase the uptime by better transport flows and shorten the loading and unloading times. The latter will lead to better-designed interface between vehicles and terminals and more extensive use of loading pallets.”

Harborn believes that, despite a rather negative focus on China in western media outlets and in spite of the recent travel restrictions, the reality on the ground is that China as a whole – and its transport space in particular – is undergoing paradigm shifts. “It is therefore very rewarding that we, the HVTT community, are able to offer our global knowledge and experience to those driving change in China,” he asserts. “Even the smallest improvement in China will have global implications.”