Virus-hit China’s factories sputter back online
WENZHOU, China: The Xuda Shoes Company is usually bustling at this time of year, with workers having long returned from a Lunar New Year holiday in their hometowns to kick-start production of tens of thousands of shoes daily. But China’s coronavirus epidemic has changed all that.
Only about one-third of the roughly 1,000-strong workforce at Xuda’s factory in the eastern export hub of Wenzhou are around, the rest blocked by virus-induced travel disruptions and safety measures.
Getting back to full annual capacity of seven million pairs of shoes could take several more weeks, company officials said. The situation in Wenzhou, a trade entrepot for centuries and now a major producer of
much of the world’s shoes, eyeglasses and clothing, reflects the slow progress in fully reviving China’s economy, the world’s second-largest and an indispensable lynchpin of global growth.
China’s economy remains rooted in manufacturing, much of that for export, and heavily reliant on countless laborers from the vast interior who had returned home in January for the most important Chinese holiday before the epidemic hit, killing more than 2,800 people and infecting around 80,000. “Factories that want to restart are short of labor. Wenzhou’s economy will definitely be impacted,” Yang Wenjiang, a top manager with Xuda Shoes, told AFP during an interview at the factory.
“If you don’t have workers, you can’t produce. If you can’t restart, you can’t fill orders.” The virus shut down provinces responsible for most Chinese economic output, including Zhejiang where Wenzhou is located. With concern rising over the impact on global growth, the world is watching how quickly Chinese
factories can be brought back online.
Ghost town
Adding to the unease, official data released Saturday indicated Chinese manufacturing activity in February was the lowest on record. But you don’t need numbers to convince anyone in Wenzhou.
The city is one of the worst-hit by the contagion, with 504 cases of coronavirus infections and one death as of Saturday, compared to 337 infections in far larger Shanghai up the coast.
Consequently, tough restrictions on residents’ movement were imposed in Wenzhou and other major Zhejiang cities, with fear of outsiders further complicating the return of laborers. The coastal city, with around three million people in its urban core, remains subdued, with scant road traffic and most businesses shuttered.
The western Shuangyu district, reached by a road called “Shoe Capital Avenue” in Chinese, is home to dozens of footwear factories several stories tall. But it resembles a ghost town, with most factories closed or barely operating, streets empty, and row upon row of supplier businesses shuttered and silent. The short-staffing at
Xuda allows ample room for workers to obey new factory requirements to spread out in the canteen at lunch to avoid potential virus transmission. — AFP