China's cabinet vowed to stabilize the economy and called on officials to avoid measures that harm market expectations as the government struggles to control Covid outbreaks across the country including in the financial center of Shanghai. Pedestrians along the near-empty Nanjing Road shopping street outside of the impacted areas during a lockdown due to Covid-19 in Shanghai, China, on Thursday, March 31, 2022. Last week, UBS downgraded its GDP estimate for 2022 to 3%, much lower than China’s official target of 5.5%. Shanghai recorded zero car sales for the whole of April.Ĭhina’s economy has been hit hard by the pandemic and the government’s “zero Covid” approach, forcing analysts to lower their growth forecasts for the year. It will also reduce a sales tax on some passenger vehicles, and hand out subsidies to those who replace their cars with purely electric ones, according to state-run news agency Xinhua. The government also plans to offer tax breaks and rent assistance to businesses, and support for some construction projects. On Sunday, authorities said they would work to ease “unreasonable” Covid rules. Some businesses have also been operating under so-called “closed loop” systems, which allow essential personnel to keep working provided they stay within certain parameters. (AAPL) also reported severe supply chain disruptions around the city. (VLKAF), were forced to suspend production temporarily, while electronics makers like Apple (Photo by Ding Lin/Xinhua via Getty Images) Ding Lin/Xinhua/Getty Imagesġ00,000 Chinese officials attend emergency meeting to revive Covid-hit economy The government said it was taking the drastic steps in Shanghai to detect infections and limit the spread "as soon as possible."īut as China imposes new lock downs, some of its neighbors are easing up.Premier Li Keqiang presides over a State Council meeting to appoint John Lee as the sixth-term chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region HKSAR in Beijing, capital of China, May 20, 2022. Cases are still low by Western standards, with 3,500 positive tests on Monday, but that's a record number for the city, and China's locally-developed vaccines have been rated less effective than those in the West, so the new wave has cast doubt on China's ability to prevent the variant from taking hold. Shanghai has struggled to control a surge in Omicron cases for almost a month. Police control access to a tunnel leading to the locked-down Pudong district of Shanghai, amid efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19 in China's financial capital, March 28, 2022. The lockdown will shift from Pudong to the city's more populous western half of Puxi for four days in early April. The city is a global hub for finance and manufacturing and a major international port, so the two-phased approach is a bid by Chinese authorities to minimize the disruption to business and world trade. Over the weekend, residents flocked to Shanghai stores in a rush of panic buying that saw shelves emptied and even some fights as shoppers loaded up their carts. Shanghai residents line up to buy eggs from a vendor next to a market in Yangpu district, in Shanghai, China, as the city is shut down in two staggered phases to limit the spread of COVID-19, March 28, 2022.
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