China's supply and industrial chains must be stabilized amid COVID-19 outbreaks, with local governments helping key companies get back to work, Vice Premier Liu He said at a national teleconference yesterday.
He underscored a people-centered approach in related work, and vowed to improve the working and living conditions of logistics employees and offer them financial support.
The country will issue sufficient travel permits for drivers that can be recognized across the nation and make sure that nucleic acid test results issued within 48 hours can be used in different regions, according to the meeting.
Transport should not be limited on the grounds of waiting for drivers’ COVID-19 test results, the meeting said.
“We should solve outstanding problems one by one in key regions,” Liu said.
The country will leverage funds to help stabilize supply and industrial chains, and will also create a “whitelist” of foreign trade firms and companies in the automobile, medical and other key sectors, he said.
As the Omicron variant has infected over 320,000 people across China since March, a wide range of contact-based sectors from catering to retail have taken a major hit, Fu Ling-hui, spokesman of the National Bureau of Statistics, said at a press conference yesterday.
In some instances the severity of the situation had surpassed expectations, he said, acknowledging that in some hard-hit areas factory production was reduced or suspended and logistics curbed.
In another development, China has rolled out a raft of measures to strengthen its financial support for the real economy, the country’s financial authorities said yesterday.
The country will ramp up financial support to relieve market entities in difficulties, ensure unimpeded flows in the economy and promote exports, noted a circular jointly released by the People’s Bank of China and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange.
China will increase financial support for industries, enterprises and people affected by the epidemic, guide financial institutions to expand the scale of loans and make appropriate interest concessions to the real economy, and better deploy inclusive financing for micro and small firms, said the circular.
Financial institutions should address the financing needs of transportation and logistics enterprises and truck drivers, and make reasonable arrangements for loan extension or renewal as appropriate if those entities face difficulties in repaying their loans due to the COVID-19 epidemic, the circular noted.
The country will also expand the pilot project of facilitating forex receipts and payments to the whole country, facilitate renminbi settlement and raise the efficiency of cross-border use of renminbi, the circular added.