War in Ukraine threatens to disrupt shipments via China-Europe railway, networking gear maker Zyxel warns
- Zyxel, a maker of routers and switches, suspended freight through the link operated by China Railway about three days ago
- Russia’s invasion of Ukraine risks worsening a global shipping crisis that has cut off electronics supplies, such as smartphones, video game consoles and chips
Zyxel, a maker of routers and switches controlled by Taiwan’s Unizyx Holding Corp, suspended freight through the link operated by China Railway about three days ago, company president Karsten Gewecke said.
The company anticipates potential disruptions along the route, which links China to swathes of Europe and Asia and is considered a major component of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, a Zyxel representative said.
The Taiwanese company had begun relying more on orders by train because they take three to four weeks to arrive, while a ship might take a couple of months, Zyxel’s Gewecke said in an interview.
“I was concerned that we could end up with a lot of products stuck” at the Russian-Polish border, he said. “With Europe, because of difficulties in getting space on container ships, we started using maybe a year-and-a-half ago trains from across China, over Russia into Europe - into Germany.”
“Frankly, at the moment I’m more concerned about the team itself than the business,” he said.