Operations resume at Yiwu commodities hub amid outbreak 

For Wu Xiaofan, an importer of cosmetics products from Republic of Korea, it's business as usual although he had to wait three weeks longer to restart his business at the Yiwu International Commodities Market, the world's small commodities hub, in Zhejiang province.

"The delay in market operations, more or less, had some impact on my business, but after the overall market resumption in the past two weeks, especially the resumption of logistics, things are getting better," Wu said on Monday. The market reopened on Feb 24.

Wu said all orders he had received before the Spring Festival holiday had been dispatched, except for Hubei province, because of novel coronavirus outbreak, and some remote areas of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

"Compared with previous times, there are fewer foreign buyers. More regular clients are coming back. Now my focus has shifted to exploring new clients," Wu said.

The reopening of the market is a sign that production has resumed in Zhejiang, one of the most prosperous provinces in China.

Yiwu market, the world's leading trade center for daily consumer goods, reopened its doors to global merchants on Feb 24, signaling the resumption of its full operations and recovery of business in China amid the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak.

Previously, it had opened in the middle of February. About 10,000 trading booths in District 1 and District 2 of the market were opened. Strict measures had been taken to prevent and control the epidemic.

Confident of improvement in the epidemic situation, Yiwu government decided to fully open the market in an attempt to restore its normal operations.

Economic lifeline 

"The lifeline of Yiwu's economic and social development lies in the market," said Ge Qiaodi, vice-mayor of Yiwu, at a news briefing.

Zhejiang has been setting an orderly pace for resumption of economic activities despite the fact that it is one of the most severely affected regions outside Hubei, the epicenter of the virus outbreak.

It was the first province that made policies based on different risk levels of infection.

Zhejiang came up with a novel way of containing the spread of coronavirus and promoted orderly resumption of economic and social activities.

Regions identified as low-risk or comparatively low-risk, including Yiwu, were encouraged to take measures to help companies resume production and operations as quickly as possible.

Cities in Zhejiang are ramping up support for enterprises to resume production.

Chartered train 

Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, arranged the nation's first chartered train on Feb 16 to carry around 300 migrant workers from Southwest China's Guizhou province with the aim of tackling labor shortage.

Soon, more cities in the province, including Huzhou, Jiaxing and Jinhua, started to organize chartered buses and trains to bring workers back.

In addition, the local governments came out with a slew of policies and measures, including financial support, tax cuts and other preferential services, to help companies.

Nationwide, the joint prevention and control mechanism of the State Council issued a document on Feb 17, providing guidelines for different areas to take epidemic prevention measures.

According to the guidelines, regions with low and moderate risks of infection were to push for resumption of production, while places with high risk should focus on disease prevention and control, and try to push for resumption of production as quickly as possible.

There were no cases of coronavirus infection in Zhejiang province after it launched its efforts to resume production.

As of Monday, about 99.8 percent of enterprises above a certain designated scale in the province had resumed production.

Economists and exporters hailed China for being able to mitigate the impact of the outbreak on its foreign trade, and said the country will maintain its trade growth momentum this year.

The General Administration of Customs announced on Saturday that the nation's foreign trade volume totaled 4.12 trillion yuan ($592 billion) in the first two months of this year, falling 9.6 percent year-on-year, mainly affected by the epidemic and the extended Spring Festival holiday.

However, China's exports dropped 15.9 percent to 2.04 trillion yuan, while imports declined 2.4 percent to 2.08 trillion yuan.

The GAC said that although the outbreak affected exports and imports in the short term, China's foreign trade remains highly resilient.

Strong adaptability 

Chinese firms have strong adaptability and market development capabilities that help them deal with the new situation, it said.

JP Morgan Research, the research arm of the investment bank, has predicted that the Chinese economy will grow by 15 percent quarter-on-quarter from April to June after contracting 3.9 percent in the first three months of this year, compared with the final quarter of 2019.

Jing Ulrich, the bank's vice-chairman of global banking and Asia-Pacific, believes such a rebound would demonstrate the core strength of the country's economy.

"China's ability to overcome the current crisis and continue with the long-term plans will demonstrate national resilience," she said.

"Although the resumption of work has been slower than anticipated, we expect that economic activities will rebound from late March and into the second quarter."

The first quarter has been dominated by protracted factory shutdowns, with many businesses not opening after Spring Festival, which has severely affected global supply chains.

Last month, China's manufacturing purchasing managers index, an indicator of economic trends in the manufacturing and service sectors, slumped to 35.7, the lowest level on record, down from a neutral 50 in January, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Feb 29.

Normalcy returning 

Businesses are gradually returning to some level of normality. In Guangdong province, the country's manufacturing hub, 82 percent of companies are now up and running.

The corresponding figures elsewhere are: Shanghai, 73 percent; Jiangsu province, 85 percent; Fujian province, 76 percent; and Beijing, 61 percent. The average rate of resumption nationwide stands at 67 percent.

As more cities across the country are working to restore production, Li Zheng, an economics professor at Jilin University, pointed out the importance of improving the efficiency of coordinated resumption.

"Companies should make sure that the measures adopted are scientific, effective, precise and efficient," said Li. "Governments should reduce the burden on companies and individuals."

Wang Chunhui, professor of law and management at the Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, said the resumption of production and operation is not an isolated issue.

"It needs the coordination of different links in society, which makes it necessary to create a 'green channel' for it," he said.

Qin Jirong and Andrew Moody contributed to this story.

mazhenhuan@chinadaily.com.cn

A man from Tunisia seen shopping in the jewelry area of the Yiwu International Commodities Market in Zhejiang province on Feb 19. LYV BIN/FOR CHINA DAILY