Chindia Alert: You’ll be Living in their World Very Soon
aims to alert you to the threats and opportunities that China and India present. China and India require serious attention; case of ‘hidden dragon and crouching tiger’.
Without this attention, governments, businesses and, indeed, individuals may find themselves at a great disadvantage sooner rather than later.
The POSTs (front webpages) are mainly 'cuttings' from reliable sources, updated continuously.
The PAGEs (see Tabs, above) attempt to make the information more meaningful by putting some structure to the information we have researched and assembled since 2006.
MILAN/DETROIT (Reuters) – Global automakers reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic are accelerating efforts to restart factories from Wuhan to Maranello to Michigan, using safety protocols developed for China and U.S. ventilator production operations launched in recent weeks.
Certain safety measures differ from manufacturer to manufacturer. Italian sports car maker Ferrari NV (RACE.MI) said on Wednesday it would offer voluntary blood tests to employees who wanted to know if they had been exposed to the virus.
General Motors Co’s (GM.N) head of workplace safety, Jim Glynn, told Reuters on Wednesday GM is not persuaded blood tests are useful. But Glynn said GM has studied and adapted measures taken by Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) to protect warehouse workers, such as temperature screening to catch employees with fevers before they enter the workplace.
Auto manufacturers and suppliers are converging on a consensus that temperature screening, daily health questionnaires, assembly lines redesigned to keep workers 3 to 6 feet (0.9 m to 1.8 m) apart, and lots and lots of masks and gloves can enable large-scale factories to operate safely.
“We know the protocols to keep people safe,” Gerald Johnson, GM’s executive vice president for global manufacturing, told Reuters in an interview. GM has relaunched vehicle plants in China and kept factories running in South Korea, he said.
GM has not said when it will reopen assembly plants in the United States. Other automakers are putting dates out in public, even though health officials and federal and state policymakers are wary of lifting lockdowns too soon.
“You see vehicle manufacturers … putting a stake in the ground,” said Brian Collie, head of Boston Consulting Group’s automotive practice. By setting a public date to restart production, they signal suppliers to get ready to ramp up, he said.
The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the global auto industry into the worst tailspin since the 2008-2009 financial crisis. Consumer demand for vehicles has collapsed as governments have enforced lockdowns in China, and then in Europe and the United States. For the Detroit automakers and their suppliers, the shutdown of profitable truck and sport utility vehicle plants in North America has choked off cash flow.
In Europe, major automakers have said they hope to begin building vehicles again in mid-to-late April. In the United States, several big automakers, including Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCHA.MI) (FCAU.N), Honda Motor Co Ltd (7267.T) and Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), are aiming to restart production during the first week of May.
Fiat Chrysler (FCA) and unions are discussing plans for beefed-up health measures at Italian plants to pave the way for production to restart as soon as the government eases a national lockdown due to expire on April 13, unions said on Wednesday.
Among the proposals from Fiat Chrysler’s Italian unions: move meals to the end of shifts, allowing employees to chose to avoid canteens, eat their food elsewhere and leave half an hour earlier without losing pay.
FCA did not comment on specific measures.
In the United States, some non-union automakers have also said they hope to restart vehicle plants as soon as next week.
Tire maker Bridgestone said on Wednesday it plans to restart U.S. production on April 13.
But the Trump administration has said people should continue to practice social distancing until April 30.
VENTILATOR ASSEMBLY
For the Detroit automakers, the United Auto Workers union will play a key role in deciding when and how plants will restart.
UAW President Rory Gamble said in a statement on Wednesday the union is in “deep discussions with all three companies to plan ahead over the implementation of CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] safety standards and using all available technologies to protect all UAW members, their families and the public.”
Among the union’s concerns is that members who report being ill can take time away from work without penalty, Gamble added.
The UAW has supported GM and Ford Motor Co’s (F.N) efforts to launch production of ventilators in U.S. plants – operations that have allowed the companies and the union to road-test safety measures at small scale.
At GM’s ventilator assembly plant in Kokomo, Indiana, workers and managers have been fine-tuning details such as when employees are handed masks, and when they step in front of a temperature screening device.
At first, ventilator assemblers in training at Kokomo walked down a hall before getting a mask, said Debby Hollis, one of the UAW-represented workers. Last week, she said, “They met us at the door and had us get in the masks there.”
TOKYO (Reuters) – Uncertainty over Japan’s economic outlook is “extremely high” as the coronavirus pandemic hits output and consumption, central bank Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said, stressing his readiness to take additional monetary steps to prevent a deep recession.
While aggressive central bank actions across the globe have eased financial market tensions somewhat, corporate funding strains were worsening, Kuroda told a quarterly meeting of the Bank of Japan’s regional branch managers on Thursday.
“The spread of the coronavirus is having a severe impact on Japan’s economy through declines in exports, output, demand from overseas tourists and private consumption,” he said.
Japan recorded 503 new coronavirus infections on Wednesday – its biggest daily increase since the start of the pandemic – as a state of emergency took effect giving governors stronger legal authority to urge people to stay home and businesses to close.
In contrast to stringent lockdowns in some countries, mandating fines and arrests for non-compliance, enforcement will rely more on peer pressure and a deep-rooted Japanese tradition of respect for authority.
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The balancing act underscores the difficulty authorities have in trying to contain the outbreak without imposing a mandatory lockdown that could deal a major blow to an economy already struggling to cope with the virus outbreak.
Hideaki Omura, the governor of the central Japan prefecture of Aichi, said he would declare a state of emergency for his prefecture on Friday.
Omura said Aichi, which includes the city of Nagoya and hosts Toyota Motor Corp, was talking with the central government about being included in the national state of emergency as well, but felt he could not wait any longer to restrict movement.
“Looking at things the past week and watching the situation – the rise in patients, the number without any traceable cause – we judged that it was a very dangerous situation and wanted to make preparations,” he told a news conference.
Even with less stringent restrictions compared with other countries, analysts polled by Reuters expect Japan to slip into a deep recession this year as the virus outbreak wreaks havoc on business and daily life.
Shares of Oriental Land Co (4661.T) fell on Thursday after the operator of Tokyo Disneyland said it would keep the amusement park shut until mid-May.
Entertainment facility operator Uchiyama Holdings (6059.T) said it was closing 43 karaoke shops and 11 restaurants until May 6.
“For the time being, we won’t hesitate to take additional monetary easing steps if needed, with a close eye on developments regarding the coronavirus outbreak,” Kuroda said.
Kuroda’s remarks highlight the strong concern policymakers have over the outlook for Japan’s economy and how companies continue to struggle to generate cash, despite government and central bank promises to flood the economy with funds.
At its policy meeting later this month, the BOJ is likely to make a rare projection that the world’s third-largest economy will shrink this year, sources have told Reuters.
The BOJ eased monetary policy in March by pledging to boost purchases of assets ranging from government bonds, commercial paper, corporate bonds and trust funds investing in stocks.
The government also rolled out a nearly $1 trillion stimulus package to soften the economic blow.
BEIJING, April 7 (Xinhua) — China will set up 46 new integrated pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce, as well as support processing trade with new steps and hold the Canton Fair online to keep foreign trade and investment stable amid the epidemic, according to the State Council’s executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang Tuesday.
Figures from the General Administration of Customs showed that the retail sales of China’s cross-border e-commerce businesses reached 186.21 billion yuan (about 26.25 billion U.S. dollars) in 2019.
The Tuesday meeting noted the massive impact of the fast-evolving outbreak worldwide on the global economy, trade and investment. The fast growth of cross-border e-commerce in recent years has become a new highlight in the country’s foreign trade. It is important to leverage the unique strength of cross-border e-commerce when the traditional sectors in foreign trade are hit hard in the COVID-19 outbreak, in order to drive foreign trade with new business forms in this trying time.
“Tackling the economic impact of the outbreak abroad is a pressing task. With the tight containment measures introduced across countries, foreign trade and investment are persistently going downward,” Li said.
The meeting decided to set up another 46 integrated pilot zones for cross-border e-commerce on top of the 59 existing ones. In addition to applying the practices proven effective in boosting the flow of commerce, firms in these zones will enjoy such support policies as exemption of value-added and consumption taxes on retail exports, and assessed levy of the corporate income tax.
Integrated pilot zones with proper conditions will be listed into the pilot program on retail imports of cross-border e-commerce. Companies will be supported to jointly build and share overseas warehouses.
“We must accelerate the development of cross-border e-commerce and other new models to boost foreign trade and investment. Competent departments must exercise sound quality supervision and ensure unimpeded logistic services,” Li said.
Measures to boost processing trade are also discussed at the meeting. With processing trade accounting for one fourth of the country’s foreign trade, the meeting stressed the need to coordinate domestic and foreign trade and help companies engaged in processing trade tackle their difficulties, as well as to stabilize foreign investment and employment.
“In a globalized world, countries all have a stake in each other’s future. The Chinese economy has been deeply integrated into the world economy. We must promptly analyze the outbreak’s impact on the industrial chains and work out our policy response accordingly. This is vitally important for stabilizing employment,” Li said.
It was decided at the meeting that interests of the deferred tax for the bonded materials or finished products in processing trade sold domestically will be temporarily waived till the end of this year. The pilot program where processing trade companies may pay duty for their domestic sales as either imported materials or finished goods will be extended to all the integrated bonded zones.
The category of industries where foreign investment is encouraged will be expanded, and the list of prohibited goods in processing trade will be shortened.
“We must take a holistic approach in developing domestic and foreign trade, and swiftly introduce support policies prioritizing the domestic sales by processing trade companies,” Li added.
It was also decided that given the serious outbreak situation globally, the 127th China Import and Export Fair, also known as Canton Fair, will be hosted online in mid- to late June.
Companies from home and abroad will be widely invited to exhibit their products online. Powered by advanced information technology, the Fair will provide around-the-clock services for online product promotion, matchmaking and business negotiations. It will be an Internet-enabled foreign trade platform of quality and specialty products where Chinese and foreign businesses may place orders and cut deals without the hassle of travel.
Most of the relief fund earmarked to subsidise employees’ wages in affected industries
Lam and ministers slash their salaries following controversy over chief executive’s pay
Many businesses have been forced to close because of the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: Winson Wong
More than 1 million Hong Kong workers will have part of their wages paid for by the government under a HK$137.5 billion package of measures to help businesses and residents struggling during the Covid-19 crisis, while the city’s leader and her ministers have vowed to take a pay cut, the Post has learned.
Revealing the massive relief fund on Wednesday, Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said HK$80 billion would go towards the wage scheme, targeting coronavirus-hit industries over six months with individual payments capped at 50 per cent of salaries, up to HK$9,000 a month. The employers receiving the lifeline must pledge not to lay off workers, she added.
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Lam said the package, together with other recent pledges of financial relief, would cost a total of HK$287.5 billion, causing the budget deficit to surge from HK$139.1 billion this financial year to HK$276.6 billion, which is equivalent to 9.5 per cent of gross domestic product.
The relief deal is equivalent in size to 4.6 per cent of the city’s GDP.
Meanwhile, Lam’s monthly salary will fall to HK$390,000 after rising to HK$434,000 last July.
Lam and her 16 ministers had voluntarily agreed to a 10 per cent pay reduction for a year, the chief executive told the press conference.
The HK$137.5 billion deal – which was given the green light by her Executive Council earlier in the day – aims to safeguard employment and ease the woes of businesses, with the number of confirmed Covid-19 cases in the city reaching 960 on Wednesday.
A source said: “The scheme is aimed at coping with the economic hardship brought by the pandemic in the next six months. More than 1 million employees from various sectors, on top of those directly affected by the government’s social-distancing measures, will benefit.”
Staff affected by the latest social-distancing rules – including businesses forced to close – will benefit from the wage scheme, along with employees in sectors such as tourism and construction, two other sources said.
Some businesses set to benefit would be those related to education, such as tutorial centres, school bus operators and PE coaches contracted from outside, according to one.
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“The government is drawing reference from the British government’s recent practice of paying 80 per cent of salaries of employees in affected industries, although the percentage and cap are lower in Hong Kong,” one source said.
In an unprecedented step announced last month, the UK government said the state would pay grants covering up to 80 per cent of salaries if companies kept workers on the payroll rather than laying them off.
In Singapore, the government has offered to pay 75 per cent of workers’ April wages, capped at S$4,600 (HK$25,000) per person.
The Japanese government on Tuesday approved its largest-ever economic relief package, which includes grants of up to 2 million yen (US$18,350), for small and medium-sized businesses whose revenues had more than halved.
Hongkonger recalls weeks of lockdown in Wuhan, China, the first epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic
With the Hong Kong government sitting on reserves of more than HK$1.1 trillion, the Professional Commons think tank said the authorities should spend HK$200 billion on businesses and workers, including handing HK$7,500 a month over six months to sacked staff and covering 80 per cent of salaries up to a monthly maximum of HK$25,000 for workers at struggling firms and the self-employed.
Wuhan, where the first cases of the novel coronavirus were detected, is ending a 76-day lockdown
A day before the lockdown was fully lifted, Tencent announces a slew of initiatives focused on helping to revive the digital industry in the city
Passengers leaving Wuhan city are pictured at the Hankou Railway Station in Wuhan city, central China’s Hubei province, on Wednesday morning, April 08, 2020. Photo: SCMP/Simon Song
A day before China lifted a months-long lockdown of Wuhan city, the initial epicentre of the coronavirus pandemic, Chinese internet giant Tencent Holdings pledged to invest in digital government, online education and artificial intelligence (AI) in the city, among other fields.
“During the epidemic, Tencent has been supporting Hubei and Wuhan’s fight against the virus through funds and technology,” the company best known for its gaming business said in a statement posted on Tuesday on WeChat. “In the future, we will also fully support Wuhan’s post-pandemic reconstruction and continue to support the development of Wuhan’s digital industry.”
China’s major tech companies have played a big role in the fight against the coronavirus, and are now playing their part in the economic recovery of Wuhan and other areas that have suffered under extended travel restrictions and business closures.
and Pinduoduo each announced their own initiatives to help revive sales of farm goods from Hubei as the province emerges from its months-long lockdown.
Popular mobile payments app Alipay also created a dedicated section for Wuhan merchants to allow users to buy from merchants in the city, and offered loans to small local merchants in need of financial support, according to an Alipay statement. Alipay is operated by Ant Financial, an affiliate of Alibaba, which owns the South China Morning Post.
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Wuhan, an industrial powerhouse for the steel, semiconductors and automotive sectors, is emerging from an unprecedented lockdown which began on January 23 and prevented people from moving in and out of the city.
Since restrictions began easing gradually in late March, business activity has shown signs of recovery: Tencent’s mobile payment platform WeChat Pay recorded a 162 per cent increase in offline transactions in a 10-day period from March 25, compared to the same period the previous month, according to a separate statement by Tencent on Wednesday.
Searches for “work resumption certificates” – which businesses need to submit to local authorities to prove their staff can safely restart work – also increased 320 per cent on Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, in the past month, Baidu said in a report on Wednesday.
Tencent declined to provide specific details regarding the size of its latest investment in Wuhan or a timeline for its implementation, but said in the statement that it will involve closer cooperation with city authorities in the areas of digital government, education, smart mobility, AI and cybersecurity to help the city with its digital industries.
Among these initiatives, it will push ahead with a plan to build a headquarters focusing on digital industries in Wuhan, specifically digitalisation for the government and smart city initiatives.
It will also establish a base in Wuhan for its online education initiatives, set up an AI lab and cybersecurity academy and build a school focusing on smart mobility in collaboration with Chinese carmaker Dongfeng Motor Corporation, the company said in the statement.
BEIJING (Reuters) – As the world grapples with the escalating coronavirus pandemic, China reopened the city of Wuhan on Wednesday, allowing its 11 million residents to leave for the first time in over two months, a milestone in its effort to combat the outbreak.
But while the operation to contain Wuhan’s coronavirus outbreak has been hailed as a success by China and many international health experts, it didn’t come easy.
Using virus , official reports and over a dozen interviews with officials, residents and scientists in Wuhan, Reuters has compiled a comprehensive account of how the military-style quarantine of the city unfolded.
SCIENTIST TOUR
Wuhan health authorities reported the first case of what turned out to be the new coronavirus in December, and the first known death linked to the virus in early January.
City officials insisted the situation was under control for the first two weeks of January, downplaying the possibility of human-to-human transmission as they focused on a seafood and wildlife market where the outbreak was believed to have started.
But troubling signs were emerging.
Hospital respiratory wards began reaching capacity by around Jan 12, and some people were being turned away, a half dozen Wuhan residents told Reuters.
But at least up to Jan. 16, Wuhan’s government said that no new cases of the disease had occurred for about two weeks, and the city continued as normal. Diners packed restaurants, shoppers flocked to commercial districts, and travellers headed to train stations and airports for their Lunar New Year holidays.
Minimal measures were put in place to take the temperatures of residents in public places, or encourage them to wear protective masks, residents said.
“We ordinary people did not know that we needed to take protective measures,” said Wang Wenjun, whose uncle died of the coronavirus on Jan 31.
But that changed after Jan 18, when a team of scientists sent by the central government in Beijing arrived in Wuhan.
Leading the group was 83-year-old Zhong Nanshan, an epidemiologist credited with raising the alarm in China about the spread of another coronavirus, SARS, in 2003. Over two days, the team investigated the source and scale of Wuhan’s outbreak, inspecting the seafood and wildlife market and other sites.
As the scientists toured Wuhan, their mood darkened as the scale of the crisis became clear, said a source familiar with the trip.
A day before the scientists arrived, four new cases were confirmed in Wuhan, none of which had apparent links to the market.
That cast doubt over local authorities’ previous assertions that there was no substantial evidence of human-to-human transmission, which would have required them to impose drastic containment measures on the city.
The scientists’ visit was the third by an expert group since the end of December as suspicion in Beijing grew that the virus was transmissible and local officials had concealed the challenges they faced containing the disease, according to an academic on the Jan 18 trip and a scientist who visited on Jan 2. Another trip took place on Jan 8.
During the Jan 18 visit, the team made several discoveries that had been previously undisclosed to the public by local officials.
Over a dozen healthcare workers had been infected, efforts to track close contacts with other confirmed cases had dwindled, and hospitals had not conducted a single test before Jan. 16, Zhong and other experts on the team announced a few days after their trip to Wuhan.
On Jan 19, the group of about a half dozen scientists returned to Beijing, where they reported their findings to the National Health Commission, which formulates China’s health policy.
The experts recommended that Wuhan be put under quarantine and that hospital capacity be rapidly expanded, according to two sources who were briefed on the discussions. Zhong himself had suggested the lockdown measures, they said. Zhong and the commission did not respond to requests for comment.
One of the sources said the proposal was initially rejected by Wuhan government officials because they feared the economic impact, but they were overruled by the central authorities.
On the evening of Jan 20, the central government set up a taskforce in Wuhan to spearhead the fight against the epidemic.
The lockdown of Wuhan had been put in motion.
Ye Qing, deputy chief of the statistics bureau in Hubei province, where Wuhan is located, said it was only when Zhong announced his findings that he began to realize the seriousness of this epidemic.
Wuhan officials, he said, reacted far too late. “If the government had sent out a notice, if they had asked everyone to wear masks, to do temperature checks, maybe a lot fewer people would have died.”
He added: “It’s a painful lesson with blood and tears.”
Later tracing of virus patients showed that people confirmed to have the virus travelled from Wuhan to at least 25 provinces, municipalities and administrative regions across China before the lockdown plan went into action.
The Wuhan government and the National Health Commission in Beijing did not respond to requests for comment.
LOCKDOWN
The ripple effects of events in Beijing were soon felt in Wuhan.
On Jan 22, senior officials in Wuhan received a written government notice telling them not to leave the city, or report their whereabouts if they had, according to two local government sources.
The directive offered no further details, but at about 8 p.m. that night, some officials received notice by telephone that the city would be shut off the next morning, the sources said.
The lockdown was publicly announced at 2 a.m., sending thousands of Wuhan residents scrambling to find a way out.
But access into and out of the city was quickly closed off, with public transportation shut down and the use of private cars banned. Residents were soon after restricted to their homes.
Having seized control of the crisis, Beijing also removed a number of key officials from Wuhan and Hubei province.
Wuhan’s mayor, Zhou Xianwang, who kept his job, made a frank admission in an interview with state media a few days later that party-reporting mechanisms had stifled early action.
“Information should have been released more quickly,” he said. The process had been slowed by officials in Wuhan being “obliged to seek permission” before fully disclosing information to the public, he said.
‘NEW NORMAL’
Almost two months after the lockdown was imposed, China has started allowing residents to leave the city, as well as permitting domestic flights and inter-city trains. Wuhan has reported just one new case in the past week, and around 93% of all cases have recovered, according to official data.
As other countries consider Wuhan-style quarantines, those numbers have come under increased scrutiny, however. U.S. President Donald Trump said last week that China’s numbers were “on the light side,” drawing the ire of Beijing.
China has also only just begun reporting data on asymptomatic cases – those in which carriers can transmit the disease without feeling symptoms – in the past week. That followed a public backlash on social media in China that the key numbers had been omitted from the official tally, raising concerns that such cases could lead to a second wave of infections.
Xue Lan, a professor at Tsinghua University who is a member of a government coronavirus task force, said precautions put in place for the lockdown – like social distancing – would likely become a part of life in the future in China.
“From now on our social lives will enter a new normal,” Xue said.
BEIJING, April 6 (Xinhua) — Bike riding, bird watching, or simply enjoying the natural scenery against the blue sky. A wild duck lake wetland in suburban Beijing has attracted urbanites during the traditional Qingming festival.
The park imposes a daily limit of 1,680 visitors and workers take body temperatures for visitors and ask them to show their health codes, which are common preventive measures in many scenic spots.
“Our tickets sold out one day in advance on the Internet, “said Liu Xuemei, a park management official. “Through the online booking of tickets, we strictly control the flow of tourists to protect wild birds as it is a season of bird migration.”
Besides paying tribute to the dead, outing is another tradition among Chinese during Tomb-sweeping Day, also known as Qingming Festival which fell on Saturday. Citizens enjoy a three-day holiday for the festival.
As China’s domestic COVID-19 situation continues its improving trend, more parks and scenic sites have reopened across the country, providing places for citizens to have spring outings amid tight prevention measures.
On Saturday, the Juyongguan section of the Great Wall and the Ming Tombs in Beijing reopened to the public after two months of closure in the prevention and control of COVID-19.
The famous Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing, which partly opened on March 24, hosted 12,000 tourists on Sunday alone.
Beijing’s major parks, which partly opened to the public, also adopted strict measures to control the number of tourists while cancelling some traditional spring activities such as enjoying flowers to avoid gathering.
Data from several domestic travel companies such as Qunar and Trip.com show that the domestic tourism industry is recovering and the booking volume of tickets for travel, hotels and scenic spots is on the rise.
Since March, some of the business activities of travel agencies have resumed in more than 10 provinces and municipalities. Tours around cities and 1-hour high-speed trips are popular, according to the travel platforms.
“I haven’t been out during the epidemic. It’s fine today. I brought my daughter to the mountain area to breathe fresh air and relax,” said a female tourist surnamed Liu, in the city of Wuhu, east China’s Anhui Province. Liu went to the suburban area of Wuhu with her daughter for an outing on Saturday and said she felt the epidemic prevention measures were reassuring.
At the Balihe scenic area in Yingshang County, Anhui, the number of tourists rose from 1,000 after it reopened on March 15 to about 8,000 per day during the Qingming holiday.
The scenic area implements online real-name booking. Its tourist service center has a body temperature detection area and provides wash-free disinfectant. Staff members wear masks and gloves, according to Wang Longtao, deputy general manager of a company in charge of the Balihe tourism development.
“I am optimistic about the recovery of domestic tourism. People have accumulated a strong desire to consume,” said Liang Jianzhang, co-founder and chairman of Trip.com Group.
Huangshan Mountain, a UNESCO world heritage site in Anhui Province, saw 20,000 tourists on Saturday and Sunday, as pictures of crowded tourists triggered concerns over epidemic prevention.
The scenic area authorities said Monday they increased 20 transfer buses and mobilized a total of 160 buses to prevent overcrowding.
Industry experts warn that as the COVID-19 epidemic has not ended domestically and the pressure of imported cases is growing, scenic spots should make people’s safety and health the top priority and take targeted measures as they reopen.
Buying and paying for meals and supplies online was already second nature for many Chinese before the Covid-19 lockdown
The supply and delivery networks that were already in place were able to work with the authorities in cities like Wuhan
China’s established home delivery system played an important role in getting food and other necessities to residents during the Wuhan lockdown. Photo: EPA-EFE
When Liu Yilin, a retired middle schoolteacher in Wuhan, first heard rumours of a
and shoppers flooded to the markets and malls to snap up supplies.
But as time went on and with residents banned from leaving their homes, he became increasingly concerned about getting hold of fresh supplies of vegetables, fruit and meat until the nation’s vast network of delivery drivers came to the rescue.
“It was such a relief that several necessity purchasing groups organised by community workers and volunteers suddenly emerged on WeChat [a leading social media app] days after the lockdown,” Liu said. “China’s powerful home delivery service makes life much easier at a time of crisis.”
Hu Xingdou, a Beijing-based independent political economist said: “Home delivery played a very important role amid the coronavirus outbreak. To some extent, it prevented people from starving especially in cases when local governments took extreme measures to isolate people.”
According to Liu, people in Wuhan during the lockdown had to stay within their residential communities, with community workers guarding the exits.
Human contact was limited to the internet. Residents placed orders online with farmers, small merchants or supermarkets to buy daily necessities, and community workers helped distribute the goods from deliverymen.
Every morning, Liu passed a piece of paper with his name, phone number and order number to a community worker who would collect the items from a courier at the gate of the residential area.
Thanks to a high population density in urban areas, affluent labour force and people’s openness to digital life, China has built a well-developed home delivery network.
Extensive funding from technology companies has been invested in hardware infrastructure, software to improve logistics and big data and cloud computing to help predict consumers’ behaviour.
Mark Greeven, professor of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, said: “Whether it is delivery of products, air parcels or fresh food or even medicine or materials for medical use, China has a very well developed system. Much better developed than I think almost any other places in the world.
“Well before the crisis, China had started to embrace digital technology in daily life whether it is in consumption, business, government and smart cities and use of third party payments. All of these things have been in place for a long time and the crisis tested its agility and capability to deal with peak demand.”
China’s e-commerce giants help revive sales of farm goods from Hubei
3 Apr 2020
According to e-commerce giant JD.com, demands for e-commerce and delivery services spiked during the outbreak of Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus.
It sold around 220 million items between January 20 and February 28, mainly grains and dairy products with the value of beef orders trebling and chicken deliveries quadrupling compared with a year ago.
Tang Yishen, head of JD Fresh, its fresh foods subsidiary, said: “The surge of online demand for fresh merchandise shows the pandemic helped e-commerce providers further penetrate into the life of customers. It also helped upstream farm producers to know and trust us.”
Meituan Dianping, a leading e-commerce platform, said its grocery retail service Meituan Instashopping reported a 400 per cent growth in sales from a year ago in February from local supermarkets.
The most popular items ordered between January 26 and February 8 were face masks, disinfectant, tangerines, packed fresh-cut fruits and potatoes.
The food delivery service Ele.me said that, between January 21 and February 8, deliveries of frozen food surged more than 600 per cent year on year, followed by a nearly 500 per cent growth in delivery of pet-care products. Fresh food deliveries rose by 181 per cent while drink and snack deliveries climbed by 101 per cent and 82 per cent, respectively. Ele.me is owned by Alibaba, the parent company of the South China Morning Post.
Chinese hotpot restaurant chain adapts as coronavirus fears push communal meals off the menu
E-commerce providers used the opportunity to show goodwill and improve their relationship with customers and partners, analysts say.
Sofya Bakhta, marketing strategy analyst at the Shanghai-based Daxue Consulting, said the food delivery sector had made significant headway in reducing physical contact during the outbreak.
Delivery staff left orders in front of buildings, in lifts or temporary shelters as instructed by the clients as most properties no longer allowed them inside.
Some companies also adopted more hi-tech strategies.
In Beijing, Meituan used self-driving vehicles to deliver meals to contactless pickup stations. It also offered cardboard boxes to be used as shields aimed at preventing the spread of droplets among its clients while they ate in their workplaces. In Shanghai, Ele.me employed delivery drones to serve people under quarantine in the most affected regions.
Some companies even “shared” employees to meet the growing labour demand in the food delivery industry that could not be satisfied with their ordinary workforce, Bakhta said.
More employees from restaurants, general retail and other service businesses were “loaned” to food delivery companies, which faced manpower shortages during the outbreak, according to Sandy Shen, senior research director at global consultancy Gartner.
“These arrangements not only ensured the continuity of the delivery service but also helped businesses to retain employees during the shutdown,” she said.
A delivery man takes a break between orders in Wuhan, central China, during the lockdown. Photo: AFP
Mo Xinsheng became one such “on-loan” worker after customers stopped coming to the Beijing restaurant where he worked as a kitchen assistant.
“I wanted to earn some money and meanwhile help people who are trapped at home,” said Mo, who was hired as a delivery man.
But before he could start work he had to go through lengthy health checks before he was allowed into residential compounds.
He also had to work long hours battling the wind and cold of a Beijing winter and carrying heavy loads.
“I work about 10 hours every day just to earn several thousand yuan [several hundred US dollars] a month,” he said.
“Sometimes I almost couldn’t breathe while my hands were fully loaded with packages of rice, oil and other things.
“But I know I’m doing an important job, especially at a time of crisis,” Mo said, “It was not until then that I realised people have become so reliant on the home delivery system.”
Woman uses remote control car to buy steamed buns amid coronavirus outbreak in China
The delivery system has been improved by an effective combination of private sector innovation and public sector coordination, said Li Chen, assistant professor at the Centre for China Studies at Chinese University of Hong Kong.
“[In China,] government units and the Communist Party grass roots organisations have maintained fairly strong mobilisation capabilities to cope with emergencies, which has worked well in the crisis,” he said.
However, Liu, the Wuhan resident, said prices had gone up and vegetables were three times more expensive than they had been over Lunar New Year in 2019.
“There were few varieties that we could choose from, apart from potatoes, cabbage and carrots,” he said.
“But I’m not complaining. It’s good we can still get fresh vegetables at a difficult time. Isn’t it? After all, we are just ordinary people,” he said.
SHENYANG, April 5 (Xinhua) — Huo Chunlei, who runs a hotpot restaurant in Shenyang, capital of northeast China’s Liaoning Province, said he did not lay off any of his staff, although the restaurant is having difficulties for reopening after two months of closure in China’s nationwide measures of coronavirus control.
A few weeks after Chinese provincial-regions with low risk of the novel coronavirus gradually resumed work and production, shops and eateries have reopened, and roads become bustling again, as hundreds of millions of people confined at home for weeks in compliance with epidemic prevention rules get back to a normal life.
Huo’s restaurant has been in operation for a week. Only half of the tables are filled at dinnertime. The revenue is barely enough to cover the expenses of the house rent and employee wages, he said.
However, he said his business is able to survive because of the government’s bailout policies. For example, the approval of deferred payment of social insurance premiums for his employees alone can save him 80,000 yuan (about 11,250 U.S. dollars) a month.
“The staff are willing to stay, as we are all confident in tiding over the difficulties together,” he said.
The local governments at all levels have rolled out a slew of measures to shore up the catering business, including cutting taxes, reducing house rent as well as water and electricity fees.
The governments in Liaoning, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces have issued coupons with a value ranging from 10 million yuan to 100 million yuan to encourage people to spend on dining out.
Before the production resumption, there were some consumer councils’ surveys showing that consumers had suppressed consumption desire for dining out and shopping as well as going to movie theaters, gymnasiums and tourist spots after the epidemic crisis ends.
“The so-called retaliatory consumption has not yet appeared in the catering industry, as people are still wary about the infection risk, but there will be a gradual recovery growth,” said Chen Heng, executive director of Hainan Hotel and Catering Industry Association in the southernmost Chinese province of Hainan.
“Before reopening, we increased the distances between tables, but with reduced tables, there are still many empty tables at dinner time. My restaurant used to have all seats full and even queues,” said Huo.
Like Huo, Lin Lunheng, founder of the Fuzhou Super Dinner Co. Ltd. in southeast China’s Fujian Province, is also worried about business.
“Although the chain stores have reopened, revenues have decreased by 70 percent compared with that before the epidemic. This is a big blow to restaurants,” said Lin.
The Italian style chain restaurant has offered e-coupons to draw customers.
As the spring weather is getting more and more pleasant, consumers’ desire for dining out and travel is growing. According to a survey report jointly released by the China Travel Academy and Trip.com Group on March 19, Chinese are longing for tours across the country, with Yunnan, Hainan and Shanghai among the top destinations.
Image copyright JEN SMITHImage caption Jen Smith lives in Shenzhen, where it’s compulsory to wear a mask outside at all times
My Money is a series looking at how people spend their money – and the sometimes tough decisions they have to make. Here, Jen Smith, a children’s TV presenter from Shenzhen in southern China, takes us through a week in her life, as the country slowly emerges from the coronavirus pandemic.
Over to Jen…
Since being in lockdown I’ve been bingeing on Keeping Up With the Kardashians. It starts with one episode after dinner, blink, and suddenly it’s 3am. YouTube, Facebook, Google and Instagram are all banned here, so you’d think I’d be a binge-free socialite after a year and a half living in China. Well, those sites are banned unless you have a VPN – I pay $120 (£97) a year for mine, so Sunday was a late night, with a lie-in until 10.30 this morning.
I go for a run – mask and all, as it’s currently illegal to be outside without one. I make my coffee (bought in the UK), fruit smoothie (about 20 yuan, $2.82, £2.27) and cereal (80 yuan a packet) before cycling to work.
Today is a bit of a crazy day in the studio. I work as a children’s TV presenter. My company has profited from the lockdown as more children are watching the shows non-stop – meaning a rapid turnaround for us.
We shoot two shows from 2-6pm then “break” for a meeting. We discuss tomorrow’s shoot while I eat dinner – homemade aubergine curry. It is normal for the Chinese to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at work. Normally the company gives all staff 25 yuan through a food-ordering app, and the whole company would eat together. However, because of the current social distancing, that social time is in the far distant past!
I make it home for 8pm, order some deep-fried cauliflower as a snack (45 yuan) and start the inevitable Kardashian binge.
Total spend: 65 yuan ($9.10, £7.37)
Image copyright JEN SMITHImage caption Workers often have a midday nap in the office
It’s a much earlier start (7.30am), but the same morning routine. On my cycle to work I notice that the traffic is almost back to normal – Shenzhen is inhabited by well over 12 million people, so as you can imagine rush hour is intense. This doesn’t change the fact that everywhere you go you have to scan a QR code – leaving my apartment, using the walkway by the river, and getting into the building I work in.
After a morning of shooting I eat homemade potato curry and settle down for a nap. Naptime is such a commonality in China that people store camp beds at the office. I order a coffee and banana chips (20 yuan) for a pick-me-up before the afternoon’s shooting.
It’s St Paddy’s Day so I head to the local pubs area, catch dinner at a French restaurant (222 yuan), then a few drinks (25 yuan – mainly bought by men at the bar for us) before a very tipsy cycle home.
Total spend: 242 yuan ($34, £25)
Image copyright JEN SMITHImage caption A disposable cover reduces the risk of transmitting the virus by touching lift buttons
The morning’s shoot (thankfully) was cancelled, so I nursed a hangover in bed until around 11am, at which point I had a phone meeting for a company that I do “plus-size” modelling for (for context I’m a UK size 12). I eat a bowl of cereal and order more cauliflower (45 yuan) while I watch a film.
At 2.30pm an intern picks me up, and we head to the government building to apply for a new work visa. Ironically, the image taken for my visa is Photoshopped to remove wrinkles, freckles and my frizzy hair. When I ask why this is being done for an identification document, the intern replies that the government wants it to be neat, and “the Chinese way” is to have altered photos.
I don’t argue, and have an interview before I hand in my passport. The whole process takes around two hours, so I order food to my house while on the way home (150 yuan for burger, salad and cake!) I take a taxi across town which ends up being 39.05 yuan.
The day starts at 8.30am with coffee and reading, before I get a manicure (280 yuan). My nail lady has been very worried about the state of my hands during the virus, so she spends a whopping two and a half hours treating them while I watch a film (0.99 yuan – bought by her). Because the manicure was so long I don’t have time to eat lunch before our fitness shoot, which runs from 2-5.30pm. I then have an appointment to sign into a building which I’ll shoot in tomorrow.
The building is near a supermarket called Ole (one of the only western supermarkets), and I pick up groceries for 183 yuan before heading home to cook, listen to podcasts and prep for the big day of shooting on Friday.
Total spend: 463 yuan ($64, £52.5)
Image copyright JEN SMITHImage caption Jen filming in front of a green screen – a more colourful digital background will be added later in post-production
Fridays are generally my busiest day. The way the Chinese seem to function, is a boss will say “I want this done now” and then employees rush to finish it. Generally, they will write scripts on Monday and Tuesday, discuss Wednesday, then we shoot later in the week. The poor editors, despite mandatory office hours during the week, then have to work tirelessly through the weekend to achieve a Sunday evening deadline.
I start with mashed avocado and a hard-boiled egg before work. The morning shoot runs from 9.30-11.40am, and I have an early lunch – homemade curry again, before my regular nap time. The afternoon shoot is three hours, so I have time to pop home and shower before a live stream at 6pm. I take a taxi to and from the live stream which ends up being 28 yuan.
Total spend: 28 yuan ($3.92, £3.18)
Image copyright JEN SMITHImage caption A taxi driver has improvised a screen to reduce the risk of picking up Covid-19 from a passenger
Finally the weekend! Although things are slowly getting better in China after the coronavirus outbreak, there’s still not too much to do. So I use this time to write, play my piano and generally chill inside. Around 3pm, I venture outside to the shops to pick up some snacks (159.60 yuan) before settling in to ring my family back in the UK with a homemade cocktail – a friend of mine in Canada is doing a daily live stream, “quarantinis” where he teaches you how to make cocktails!
What’s interesting is that a lot of people have started leaving their houses again, but it is still illegal to go outside without a mask on, and temperature checks are taken everywhere. I was even refused entry to a building due to being foreign. I imagine this is because recently the only new cases are being brought in by non-Chinese travelling back to China.
Total spend: 159.60 yuan ($22, £18)
Image copyright JEN SMITHImage caption Shenzhen’s Metro system is still very quiet
It’s another slow day for me as many foreigners have not yet returned to China, so most of my friends are out of the country. I start the day by reviewing potential scripts.
This takes me to 1.30pm without realising I haven’t eaten. I decide to go for a quick run and I return to eat mashed avocado and a hard-boiled egg.
I home-bleach my hair with products bought in the UK, then head back to editing again. About half way through the afternoon I take a little break to practice Chinese. I use an app which is fantastic and free! Definitely worth everyone downloading this during social distancing so you can learn new skills!
For dinner I order online again, a three-dish meal for 160 yuan.
CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon 