New cases test Beijing firms
▶ Catering, film, education sectors stricken
Beijing's small- sized enterprises are feeling pain again as the latest round of coronavirus infections hits the capital, and companies from the catering, cinema, and training industries, which just recovered, are now facing pressure and uncertainty.
Some big- budget films are sure to be hurt as the number of confirmed COVID- 19 cases is growing in Beijing, an anonymous film producer told the Global Times on Tuesday.
He said such films usually need a relatively long season in theaters to make a profit, but new regulations may mean some films scheduled to debut in late 2020 or early 2021 have to postpone their release dates.
The film industry in Beijing, like the whole nation, was on a roller coaster in the past year. A new regulation that was announced by Beijing officials on December 25 said that all entertainment places such as cinemas and internet cafes must operate at less than 75 percent of their capacity.
Public willingness to visit theaters and limits on cinemas' capacity will hurt the industry, and whether it's operators of cinemas or investors in the film industry, uncertainties abound.
Beijing has faced a new round of the virus spreading in recent days. On Tuesday, the city reported seven new confirmed domestic cases.
Prevention and control of the epidemic in the capital must enter an emergency state, and should effectively stop the spread of the virus, city officials said on Tuesday.
The city has provided nucleic acid tests for over 1.37 million people in key areas related to COVID- 19 infections in Shunyi and Chaoyang districts, the city government said, vowing that anti- epidemic measures at airports and customs will be strengthened.
Also, officials in Xicheng district on Tuesday reported that 15 companies, including supermarket chain Carrefour, had not fully implemented virus prevention measures.
Sectors affected by the new outbreak go beyond entertainment and retail.
An anonymous teacher at an English teaching chain school told the Global Times on Tuesday that some classes are suspended because parents won't let their children go to school.
The Global Times found that a Japanese restaurant along the busy North Third Ring Road on Saturday night, which was full of people in the past, had only four customers.
A manager of a dumpling store in the Wangjing area, Chaoyang district, told Global Times on Tuesday that income has fallen 20- 30 percent compared with August and September.
Although the store is still open as usual, the manager is worried about staff layoffs. The store had a round of layoffs earlier this year due to the virus.
This new round of infections has also posed threats to the catering industry's supply chain, Zhao Jingqiao, director of the Service Economy and Catering Industry Research Center under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.