CX Daily: Shanghai’s Rocky Road to Rebooting
Beijing’s most populous district kicks off three rounds of mass Covid testing.
TOP STORIES
Rebooting /
Cover Story: Shanghai’s rocky road to rebooting
In its fourth week of a citywide Covid-19 lockdown, China’s financial, logistics and manufacturing giant Shanghai is struggling to get back on its feet.
While authorities are pushing key businesses to resume operations and more than 1,000 enterprises have employees living and working on-site, the pandemic flare-up isn’t subsiding enough for the lifting of restrictions. As a result, gridlock rules in a city that contributes the second-most to China’s GDP, behind Beijing.
Most of Shanghai’s 25 million residents are confined at home and outsiders are not allowed in, so businesses can’t get employees back to work. Lockdowns have made it difficult for factories to get the materials and parts they need to resume production. Many suppliers in neighboring regions are still closed, and Shanghai has become a logistics nightmare.
Shanghai’s March industrial output falls 7.5% on Covid lockdowns
Editorial: Resumption of work and production not solely in the hands of enterprises
Covid-19 /
Beijing starts mass Covid testing as it imposes lockdowns
Beijing’s most populous district kicked off three rounds of mass Covid testing Monday as the city battles to prevent a spike in cases after officials warned that the virus spread stealthily in the city for the past week.
Authorities in Chaoyang — home to roughly 3.5 million people and many foreign embassies — tightened restrictions on a section within the district, including the Panjiayuan and Jinsong neighborhoods. Residents there are being barred from leaving their communities “unless necessary,” according to a Monday notice (link in Chinese).
Shanghai reports steep rebound in Covid cases as citywide testing intensifies
Jiang Yunming
Corruption /
Graft probes ensnare college buddies who were top bankers
Jiang Yunming, former chairman of the supervisory board of Industrial Bank Co. Ltd., was placed under investigation, China’s top anti-graft watchdog said Friday.
Hours earlier, the graft buster disclosed an investigation of Tian Huiyu, a former president of China Merchants Bank Co. Ltd. (CMB), who is also accused of severe violation of law and party rules.
People familiar with the matter said Jiang and Tian were university classmates and close friends, and their cases are likely to be intertwined.
Banking /
Several major Chinese banks to cut deposit rates
Some of China’s biggest banks are lowering the interest they offer on deposits, Caixin learned, as authorities encouraged lenders to do so to ease their cost burden amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Several Beijing branches of the major banks issued notices that they will reduce the upper limit of the interest rates on two-year and three-year fixed deposits by around 10 basis points Monday, sources familiar with the matter said. A basis point is a hundredth of a percentage point.
Quick hits /
Hong Kong will open to nonresidents in May as pandemic curbs ease
Opinion: Will U.S. rate hikes send Chinese stocks and bonds tumbling?
Shanghai's Yangshan port on Sunday. Photo: VCG
Sea freight /
Cost of sea freight from China continues to fall off record high
The cost of sea freight out of China continued to drop this month from record highs early this year as overseas demand slackened and domestic Covid-19 outbreaks disrupted trucking.
The China Containerized Freight Index (CCFI), a measure of export container shipping prices to major markets, declined to 3109.78 for the week ending Friday, down 0.6% from the previous week and 13.3% lower than the early February peak, data from the Shanghai Shipping Exchange show.
Steel /
China’s steel industry is in for slower growth, ministry official says
China’s steel market has entered a period of slower growth due to weakened supply and demand from domestic Covid-19 flare-ups and conflicts overseas, a ministry official said.
Chen Kelong, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s (MIIT) point man for the raw materials sector, suggested at a conference Saturday that the government should help maintain reasonable steel prices to ensure that manufacturers down the production chain can still make a profit.
Cargo /
China’s heavy-cargo truckers feel the heavier hand of regulation
Cheng Kang hasn’t had this much trouble getting an overloaded vehicle permit in his more than 20 years working as a heavy-cargo truck driver in China.
In an interview with Caixin, Cheng said it “now takes at least 10 days” to get a permit that used to take two.
The longer wait times for obtaining the permit, which allows truckers like Cheng to haul cargoes that exceed the legal limit for things like weight and height, is one example of how the job of the heavy-cargo trucker has gotten harder since a fatal bridge collapse in December, which some attributed to overloaded trucks.
Self-driving /
Pony.ai gets license to run robotaxis in South China
Chinese self-driving startup Pony.ai obtained a business license to charge passengers in a southern district of Guangzhou for rides in its self-driving taxis.
The license marks a milestone in efforts to commercialize a technology on which tech giants like Baidu and Huawei have placed big bets.
But when the company launches the service in May with 100 vehicles, each car on the road will have a human driver.
Quick hits /
CATL delays release of first-quarter results on ‘principle of prudence’
Foxconn’s iPhone plant in central China keeps running despite lockdown
