By Qiu Haifeng
The COVID-19 won’t change the development trend of the Chinese economy despite its
temporary impacts. As prevention and control measures become regular and routine, work
resumption is speeding up across the country, and order of production and life is also restoring.
With various policies unveiled to stabilize employment and increase production, the Chinese
society is upbeat about economic recovery.
Machines are now cranked up on a yoga mat production line of a company based in Jinjiang,
southeast China’s Fujian province, presenting a busy scene as usual, from foaming to printing, and
to packaging.
“When the four factories of the company resumed production in early February, only less than half
of the employees returned, and now all of them are back,” said Su Yugu, general manager of the
company.
“The output of the company hit 29 million yuan ($4.1 million) in the March-April period,” said
Su, who is now back on a tight schedule again as the sales of home fitness products, such as
resistance bands and yoga mats, soared.
The company is one of the many Chinese enterprises re-embracing development, and work
resumption is being accelerated nationwide.
At a factory located in an industrial park of Chinese electronics giant Hisense in Huangdao of
Qingdao, east China’s Shandong province, about 3,000 workers are busy manufacturing smart TV
sets. The production capacity of the factory has fully recovered.
In central China’s Henan province, the workshops of Henan Jinhui Stainless Steel Industry Group
Co., Ltd. are also working around the clock to ensure on-time delivery of orders.
A number of major projects have restarted construction. In April, central China’s Hubei province
kicked off 464 new projects, each with an investment of more than 100 million yuan ($14.1
million). Besides, many projects at the 10-billion-yuan level have also resumed construction, such
as the Core Hub of International Logistics of Hubei province and the Hubei section of the
Zhengzhou-Wanzhou high-speed railway.
The hydro dam of the Aratax water conservation project, the largest of its kind in northwest
China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region recommenced, aiming to secure the four million
people living in the plain of Yarkant River during the flood season this year.
The Dagu Hydropower Station, the largest hydropower project in southwest China’s Tibet
Autonomous Region with a total investment of 12.2 billion yuan ($1.7 billion), has entered a peak
season of construction. Its first generating unit is expected to provide power supply the next year
as scheduled.
Key industries have resumed work in a steady manner. In Beijing, chain supermarkets, the
housekeeping industry, the logistics industry, large wholesale markets, petrol stations, and
secondary agricultural markets have all realized full work resumption. In Shanghai, the artificial
intelligence and integrated circuit industries have fully restored production. In southwest China’s
Chongqing municipality, its two pillar industries – automobile and electronics – have generally
restored full capacity.
China’s outstanding achievements have won wide acclaim from the international community.
United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief
Coordinator Mark Lowcock pointed out that the recovering Chinese economy will make a great
contribution to securing a final victory in the global fight against the pandemic and ensuring the
normal operation of the global economy.
Stephen Roach, a senior researcher at Yale University in the United States, believes that China is
at the center of the global supply chain and plays an important role in global trade, hailing the
country’s resumption of production as encouraging.
Chinese authorities have launched fiscal, taxation, and financial policies to restore the capital
chain, which is the lifeline of enterprises.
The Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation have further exempted value-
added taxes for small and micro-sized businesses and individually-owned businesses.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MHRSS), together with two other
departments, are expected to slash the social insurance contributions of enterprises by over 600
billion yuan ($84.6 billion) in the first half of the year.
The People’s Bank of China and other departments have provided 2.85 trillion yuan ($400 billion)
of low-cost lending for smaller businesses, especially micro-, small-, and medium-sized firms and
individually-owned businesses, through special relending and rediscount.
A total of 90 policy measures in eight areas have been launched to accurately and effectively
promote the resumption of production and assist enterprises.
China’s policy makers reacted early and rapidly to restore the economy, said Martin Raiser, World
Bank country director for China, noting that the country has provided additional liquidity to the
market, periodically reduced and exempted taxation and social insurance premiums of companies,
and granted targeted support to medium-, small- and micro-sized enterprises as well as companies
operating in critical supply chains.
The Chinese government acted quickly to wake up the economy, and there is still policy room to
support the economic recovery in the future, he added.
Employment stability guarantees social stability. Various departments, including the MHRSS,
have successively issued policies and measures to stabilize employment, including that for
migrant workers.
A campaign was carried out to guarantee the demand for labor of key enterprises, helping over
10,000 central and local key enterprises recruit nearly 500,000 people to ensure orderly
production.
A total of 3.2 million companies have received 42.3 billion yuan ($6 billion) in refunded
unemployment insurance premiums so far, which benefited 80.76 million employees. In addition,
a 100-day free online skills training campaign was carried out, benefiting about 5.9 million
people.
Kenneth Kang, Deputy Director in the Asia & Pacific Department of the International Monetary
Fund, believes that China is gradually resuming production, and its economy is expected to
rebound in the second quarter and continue to recover in the second half of the year. China’s
economy will grow substantially in 2021 as economic activity gradually normalizes, Kang said.
In the long run, China’s economy will continue to move forward, and he has full confidence in the
country’s long-term development prospects, said Alan Barrell, a professor with Judge Business
School at the University of Cambridge.
