The Moon Festival is almost upon us, followed relatively quickly by three holidays that, if not planned for, may have an impact on you.
Moon Festival
A well-celebrated, but quite small holiday in China. Many of our factories will close on Friday, 25th September and re-open on Monday 28th. From your point of view, this impact is only going to be some delayed responses from China.
China National Day & Golden Week
Celebrated from the 1st to 7th October this year, the week-long event will see factories, transportation and ports closed. Anything that hasn’t left China by the 1st will remain there until after the holidays.
Communications with the factories will cease from the 30th September, so you are likely to experience some communication delays during that period.
Pasko
Pasko (the Filipino name for Christmas) is the one of the most celebrated holidays in the Philippines. Many factories will be closed from the 20th December until the New Year.
Christmas
As return from Golden Week, we are in the fast lane for Christmas, and for Chinese New Year shortly afterwards. We frequently see customers releasing orders to beat the rush, meaning capacity fills quickly.
Early planning is advised to navigate both Christmas and CNY.
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is February 6th 2027. Whilst celebrations are likely to start from around the 5th February, it’s worth remembering that staffing levels will start to deplete ahead of this date. Factory closures are likely to take place a few days earlier and will typically last for approximately 2 weeks.
In our experience, factories will re-open with only a skeleton crew whilst some workers take extended leave after the holidays.
Taking into consideration the above, this means a period spanning around 4 weeks of low or zero production output and backlogs will accrue. We expect factories to return to full-manpower and “standard” lead times before the end of March, but encourage customers to consider an extension of around 2-3 weeks over this affected period.
Outside of production, sales enquiries and general queries will be delayed across the holidays. Response times are typically longer than usual whilst staffing returns to full capacity and backlogs are cleared – this is usually before the beginning of March.
Ports
The lead up to the holidays is extremely busy, with Factories working to complete shipments in advance of the closures. Additional consideration needs to be given to transit times from factory to ports, where congestion is highly probable. For shipments to depart China prior to customs closures, we recommend that parts are available to leave the factories no later than 20th January.
Our Recommended Lead Times
Experience tells us that advanced planning and the early release of production orders helps to minimise risk of disruption caused by these holidays. Production orders released prior to the end of October should be completed in time to depart ahead of customs closures. Moving into November, production capacity is expected to fill quickly increasing the risk that parts will not be available until after the holidays.
If you need Sunon fans or blowers, we keep an increasing range of standard items in stock in the UK. Click here to see the current list and make enquiries for these items.
Get in touch if you need to order stock, or even if you wish to adjust orders already underway so that the 2027 Chinese New Year, and other holidays, doesn’t affect your production schedules.
