Guangzhou measures will help foreign companies resume production

A senior commercial official from Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, pledged to introduce more effective and concrete measures and policies to help support, coordinate and serve the city's myriad of foreign-funded companies to resume production in the coming weeks.

Wu Shangwei, deputy director of the Guangzhou Bureau of Commerce, said his bureau has urged relevant departments in the city to actively organize and coordinate anti-epidemic and production materials to ensure enough supplies for the city's foreign-funded companies to restore production in the coming weeks.

"And relevant departments will open green channels to help ensure smooth transportation for vehicles to transport anti-epidemic and production raw materials to foreign companies to restore their production," Wu told a news conference in Guangzhou on Tuesday.

Wu's bureau will also provide special guidelines to help the city's foreign companies combat the novel coronavirus pneumonia and expand monitoring of the outbreak to help foreign firms restore their production in the following weeks, Wu said.

Wu said Guangzhou's government has always attached great importance to the utilization of foreign capital and the more than 20,000 foreign-funded companies in the city have played a big part in the economic development of the southern metropolis in previous years.

Last year, the city's foreign-funded companies contributed more than 50 percent to the city's industrial production and added value, and accounted for 42 percent of the city's total foreign trade volume, playing an important role in boosting Guangzhou's economic growth and industrial upgrading, Wu said.

And foreign companies in Guangzhou have greatly contributed to the city's anti-epidemic work in the past weeks, he added.

According to official statistics, foreign-funded companies in the city had donated more than 202 million yuan ($29 million), 2.18 million masks, 90,000 pairs of gloves and 4,500 protective suits by the end of Sunday.

Senlin Chen, vice-president of China Supply Chain, Amway China, said Amway gradually resumed full production as of Feb 10.

"Amway continues to be optimistic about the Chinese market, despite the epidemic, and has introduced a China first strategy," Chen said.

Chen added that China has been Amway's largest market in the company's global business for 17 years straight.

LG Display High-Tech (China) Co Ltd also restored production on Feb 10, and the company's staff that have returned to work now represent more than 85 percent of the company's total.

Min Dongzhi, external relationship team director of LG Display High-Tech (China) Co Ltd, said he has confidence his company will retrieve economic losses caused from the epidemic in the following months and meet the company's annual production target.

In Guangzhou's Huangpu district where a myriad of foreign-funded companies are located, 109 of 124 major foreign companies, or 87.9 percent, in the district have now resumed production.

And in Beijing, international companies in the Chinese capital's CBD have resumed more than 90 percent of their business so far.

"Many foreign companies have continued to expand their business in the mainland while making great efforts to fight against the epidemic through their online offices," said a management executive from the CBD.

And in Beijing Yintai Center, executives from more than 60 out of the total 81 companies in the luxury office plaza have returned to work, said a senior executive from the center.

"The center has introduced effective anti-epidemic measures to help prevent and control the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pneumonia in the center," said the executive.