BEIJING (AP) — Virus checks that confine millions of Chinese families to their homes and shut down shops and offices raise fears of further damage to already weak global businesses and commerce.
The ruling Communist Party promised on Nov. 11 to lessen the disruption of its “zero-COVID” strategy by easing controls. But the latest wave of outbreaks calls that into question, prompting major cities, including Beijing, to shut down populated neighborhoods, shut down shops and offices and order factories to isolate their workforces from outside contact.
On Tuesday, the government reported that 28,127 cases had been discovered in parts of China in the past 24 hours, including 25,902 without any symptoms.
The number of infections in China is lower than in the United States and other large countries. But the ruling party is sticking to “zero COVID,” which requires isolation of every case, while other governments are easing travel and other controls and trying to live with the virus.
Global stock markets fell on Monday as concern about China’s controls added to unease over a Federal Reserve official’s comment last week that already high US interest rates may need to rise more than expected to calm the economy. rising inflation.
Investors are “concerned about falling demand due to a less mobile Chinese economy amid fears that there will be more COVID-related lockdowns,” StoneX’s Fawad Razaqzada said in a report.
China is the world’s largest trader and the largest market for its Asian neighbors. Weak consumer or factory demand can hurt global producers of oil and other raw materials, computer chips and other industrial components, food products and consumer goods. Restrictions that hamper activity in Chinese ports can disrupt global trade.
Economic growth rebounded to 3.9% a year earlier in the three months to September, from 2.2% in the first half. But the activity was already beginning to decline.
Retail spending fell 0.5% year over year in October, down from 2.5% growth the previous month as cities reintroduced virus controls. Imports fell 0.3% in a sign of anemic consumer demand, a setback from September’s 6.7% increase.
Chinese exports fell 0.7% in October after US and European consumer demand were depressed by unusually high interest rate hikes by the Fed and other central banks to quell inflation that is at its all-time high decades.
Guangdong province, an export-oriented manufacturing powerhouse that is the latest hotspot of the infection, recorded 9,022 new cases on Tuesday, nearly a third of the national total. This included 8,241 without symptoms.
On Monday, the government of the provincial capital, Guangzhou, suspended access to its Baiyun district, home to some 3.7 million people, following the outbreaks.
Guangzhou last week announced plans to build quarantine facilities for nearly 250,000 people. He said 95,300 people from another district, Haizhu, had been transferred to hospitals or placed in quarantine.
The government of Shijiazhuang, a city of 11 million southwest of Beijing, has said factories that want to continue operating must impose ‘closed-loop management’, the official term for employees who live on their premises. of work. This imposes additional costs for food and living space.
Businessmen and economists see the changes in virus controls as a step towards lifting the controls that isolate China from the rest of the world. But they say “COVID zero” could stay in effect until the second half of next year.
Entrepreneurs are pessimistic about the outlook despite government promises of less disruptive anti-virus measures, according to a survey by researchers at Peking University and financial firm Ant Group Ltd. level since early 2021.
The ruling party must vaccinate millions of elderly people before it can lift controls that keep most foreign visitors out, say economists and health experts.
“We don’t believe the country is ready to open up just yet,” Oxford Economics’ Louis Loo said in a report. “We expect Chinese authorities to continue to refine COVID controls over the coming months, moving towards a broader and more comprehensive reopening thereafter. »
Source: www.apnews.com
