Chinese localities make bold moves to stabilize economy

As China further optimizes its COVID-19 response, multiple localities across the country have recently made bold and sweeping moves to stabilize the economy and promote development, boosting the resumption of work, production, and business activities.

From the 20 measures for optimizing the epidemic response to the latest 10 new measures, China’s constant improvements in its epidemic containment measures have facilitated the flow of people and business activities.

The country has seen a rebound in railway and air passenger trips in December. Between Dec. 11 and 14, China Railway Shanghai Group Co., Ltd. handled an average of over 1 million passengers per day. According to data from China Eastern Airlines, the company handled nearly 140,000 passengers on Dec. 12, an increase of about 140 percent compared to the beginning of this month.

Zhang Jiying, an umbrella business owner at the Yiwu International Trade Market in Yiwu city, east China’s Zhejiang Province, said her clients immediately took high-speed trains to visit her after the fine-tuned epidemic response measures were announced.

“Previously, we produced according to orders and didn’t dare to stock umbrellas,” Zhang said, explaining that she has now contacted nearly 7,000 potential clients.

Chinese provinces, including Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Guangdong, Fujian, Shandong and Jilin, have sent business delegations overseas to win export orders. Zhejiang Province, an economic powerhouse in east China, recently launched an action plan to send 10,000 foreign trade enterprises overseas to take part in economic and trade activities. In mid-November, Suzhou city in east China’s Jiangsu Province chartered planes to send business delegations to Japan, signing deals worth over 1 billion yuan (about $139.7 million).

Meanwhile, factories and enterprises across the country have begun operating at full production capacity.

The Lynk & Co Yuyao plant of Chinese automaker Geely Auto Group in Ningbo city, Zhejiang, is running at full throttle 10 hours a day to ensure that vehicle orders can be delivered on time. 

“After the announcement of the 20 measures for optimizing the epidemic response, our plant has seen smoother supply chains and gradually resumed production,” said Tan Fei, senior manager of the Lynk & Co Yuyao plant.

Both the central government and local governments have rolled out a wide range of policies and measures to spur economic recovery and boost the economy.

In 2022, China implemented the largest value-added tax credit refund in history, with total tax refunds coming to about 2.4 trillion yuan. The value of tax refunds along with cuts and deferrals of tax and fee payments is expected to exceed 4 trillion yuan this year. In the first 11 months, the average interest rate on business loans was 4.2 percent, 110 basis points lower than that in 2019, greatly supporting the development of the real economy.