In the wake of the novel coronavirus outbreak, operations at ports and the shipping industry have been severely disrupted, with sea ports and manufacturers shutting down in China, South Korea’s major trade partner, according to the industry on Thursday.

Shipyards here are clogged with containers that should have been either delivered or stopped over at Chinese ports. Meanwhile, vessels bringing in imported goods to Korea from China have slowed, leaving customs inspection storage units nearly empty.

Incheon Port Authority said Thursday the container storage yard utilization ratio of four container terminals was at around 80 percent, up 5 percent from the average figure in recent days.

With measures taking place to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, many ports and manufacturers in China appear to have shut down operations, leading to a halt in freight transfers.

For the South Port Incheon Container Terminal, which can handle 20,858 twenty-foot equivalent units, 20,657 TEU containers were stored Monday, using 99 percent of the storage yard. On the same day, the storage yard utilization ratio for E1 Container Terminal in South Port, which can store 7,900 TEU, recorded 92.8 percent.

The ports are considered saturated when the ratio reaches 80 percent.

As a normalization measure, the Incheon Port Authority said it will temporarily create two container storage spaces in Incheon New Port for 14,400 TEU and a space for 850 TEU in South Port.

According to maritime data provider Alphaliner, the coronavirus outbreak is likely to influence global trade this year, with the global ocean container volume expected to be reduced by about 0.7 percent, or 6 million containers.

By Jo He-rim (herim@heraldcorp.com)