03/05/2020
BEIJING (Reuters) – General Motors’ sales in China saw double-digit year-on-year growth in April, its two local ventures said on Sunday, as the world’s biggest auto market recovers from the coronavirus.
GM’s (GM.N) joint venture with SAIC Motor Corp (600104.SS), which manufactures Buick, Chevrolet and Cadillac vehicles, said its sales in China grew 13.6% compared to a year earlier. It said it had sold 111,155 units in April, including exported cars.
Meanwhile, SGMW, a separate GM venture with SAIC and Guangxi Automobile Group which produces no-frills minivans and has started to make higher-end cars, said its sales jumped 13.5% to over 127,000 units last month.
U.S. automaker GM, which is China’s second biggest foreign car company after Volkswagen (VOWG_p.DE), said its sales in China fell 43.3% in the first three months of 2020 compared with the same period last year.
To attract customers, GM and SAIC have hired social media celebrities to promote its new models and are offering free medical masks to customers.
China’s biggest automaker SAIC, which sold more than 6 million cars last year, said its sales rose 0.5% compared to the same period last year. As well as the GM venture, it also builds its own brand cars and operates a venture with Volkswagen.
Source: Reuters
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23/02/2020
- An extended Lunar New Year holiday provides people from the self-ruled island with the opportunity to rethink their careers as the death toll from the deadly infection continues to rise
- Online poll finds 63 per cent of Taiwanese unwilling to return to mainland China over health concerns
Many Taiwanese are opting not to return to their jobs in mainland China because of the coronavirus epidemic. Photo: EPA-EFE
Taiwanese account manager Douglas Liu values his life more than his job, which is why he will be staying at home on Monday rather than going back to work in the mainland China city of Suzhou.
Liu returned to his home in Taipei on January 10 for an extended Lunar New Year
holiday – and to vote in the island’s presidential election – and planned to go back to work on February 1. But as the
coronavirus epidemic worsened, the 45-year-old changed his plans.
“Last week, my company told me I should resume work on February 24, but after I argued in vain over the risk of returning to Suzhou, I tendered my resignation,” he said. “After all, my life is more important.”
Liu works for a firm that manufactures chest freezers for the mainland Chinese market.
“With more than 80 coronavirus infections in Suzhou and little sign of it subsiding, who knows what could happen to me if I return,” he said.
More than 78,700 people have contracted the virus since it was first detected in Wuhan, the capital of central China’s Hubei province, at the end of last year, and close to 2,500 have lost their lives to it.
As of Saturday, about 98 per cent of the infections and 99 per cent of the fatalities were in mainland China, two figures that have prompted many Taiwanese to rethink their employment plans.
According to a survey conducted last week by online recruitment agency 104 Job Bank, 63 per cent of Taiwanese with jobs on the mainland said they would not be returning to work after the extended Lunar New holiday. Before Wuhan was placed under lockdown on January 23 in a bid to contain the coronavirus outbreak, the figure was just 50 per cent.
“The intensification of the outbreak has created panic and insecurity for Taiwanese who work in mainland China and the lockdown of many cities has further discouraged them from returning to their jobs,” said Jason Chin, a senior vice-president at the recruitment agency.
Wuhan has been on lockdown since January 23. Photo: Reuters
Dozens of cities across China have introduced some form of restriction on the movement of residents, and several remain under total lockdown.
Chin said that the containment efforts had made it impossible for many companies to resume normal operations and provided a catalyst for Taiwanese workers to seek employment elsewhere.
“Taiwanese often to change jobs after the Lunar New Year, so the mainland government’s policy of delaying the resumption of regular business activities has given them more time to look for work outside mainland China,” he said.
Shannon Chiu is another Taiwanese who decided to call time on the mainland because of the coronavirus outbreak.
After two years working for an agricultural technology company in Zhengzhou, the capital of central China’s Henan province, she said she already had concerns about the standards of health care there.
“Being sick in Zhengzhou is a nightmare for Taiwanese because of the poor organisation and registration procedures,” she said.
“You either have to wait hours to see a doctor or go hospital-hopping in the hope of getting an appointment somewhere else.”
Chiu said she was still working in Zhengzhou after the outbreak had been reported in Wuhan – about 500km (310 miles) to the south – but no one in the city was wearing a face mask.
“I was lucky because I came back to Taiwan a week before the lockdown and my company allowed me to continue working from Taipei,” she said.
“Although I no longer enjoy the expatriate benefits, I feel a lot safer here because I don’t think I would survive if I was put in a mainland hospital because of Covid-19.”
Source: SCMP
Posted in agricultural technology company, call time, chest freezers, coronavirus, COVID-19, Fears, Henan province, Lunar New Year holiday, Mainland China, Mainland Chinese, manufactures, market, Suzhou, Taiwanese, Uncategorized, workers, Wuhan, Zhengzhou |
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