Shanghai inches back toward normalcy

Shanghai has been gradually containing the latest COVID-19 outbreak and making more efforts to resume normal production and operations of businesses, local officials said on Tuesday.

Some 16 of the 24 major projects that were designated by the municipal government on May 4 as the first batch to resume operations, have restarted construction. The rest have been making preparations to resume their operations, said Zhu Jianhao, deputy director of the Shanghai Housing and Urban-Rural Development Commission, in a news conference on Tuesday.

The first white list includes railway, road, hospital and airport-related projects. A second white list is under revision and will be released when appropriate, said Zhu.

But he stressed that the complete normalization of these major projects will be possible only with the recovery of all the industrial chains as well as the orderly and safe flow of people.

Production resumption has been steadily advanced in Lin-gang Special Area, the part of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone known for its high-end manufacturing industries.

Wu Xiaohua, deputy director of the Lin-gang administration, said at the Tuesday event that the area is home to 315 companies whose average annual sales revenue reaches at least 20 million yuan ($3 million).As of May 16, 301 of them had resumed production. Meanwhile, more than 51,000 people have been back at work, taking up 69 percent of all the working population in Lingang.

The overall capacity utilization ratio in Lin-gang has been steadily rising and reached 45 percent on Monday. All the integrated circuit companies in Lin-gang have restored full production. The high-end equipment industry has seen its capacity utilization ratio recover to 50 percent, said Wu.

While the capacity utilization ratio for new energy vehicles in Lin-gang has reached 46 percent, that for the industrial chain supporting automobiles clawed back to 50 percent. The corresponding number for Tesla's gigafactory in Lin-gang is slightly lower at 45 percent.

Wu explained the industrial chain of the automotive industry is relatively longer. Therefore, leading carmakers should resume production first to drive the complete recovery of the industrial chain. Tesla, for instance, has been coordinating with the production resumption of 100 suppliers as well as warehouses.

Tesla sold 1,512 cars in China in April, down 98 percent from the level in March, said the China Passenger Car Association on May 10. The electric vehicle giant's latest quarterly financial report released in late April said that although its Shanghai factory's output fell by 50,000 cars due to the epidemic so far, its second-quarter output is still expected to keep pace with the first quarter's level.

At the beginning of this month, the Lin-gang administration exempted nearly 5,000 small and micro-sized technology companies, restaurants, hotels and retailers from 210 million yuan worth of rental payments in all. Another 80 million yuan of direct fiscal support will also be rendered to these companies, said Wu.

More well-targeted, powerful and extensive policies will be introduced in the following months, with focus on the small and micro-sized enterprises located in Lin-gang, so that the area can better shoulder its responsibility as a key growth engine of Shanghai's high-quality economic development, said Wu.

All districts in Shanghai have achieved zero new COVID-19 infection outside quarantine and lockdown populations, local authorities said at the Tuesday conference.

All 77 local COVID-19 confirmed cases and 746 asymptomatic infections registered on Monday were found within quarantined sections of the population living in areas under lockdown. The city has reported no new infections outside the quarantined sections of the population in areas under lockdown for three straight days.