SHANGHAI LETS FINANCIAL FIRMS RESUME WORK AS CURBS EASE
SHANGHAI/BEIJING—Shanghai authorities have granted approval to 864 of the city’s financial institutions to resume work, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday, as it gradually eases a citywide lockdown that began seven weeks ago.
The move is part of the financial hub’s plan to reopen broadly and allow normal life to resume after the lockdown was enacted to curb China’s worst outbreak since the coronavirus was discovered in Wuhan in late 2019 halted most economic activity.
The China Foreign Exchange Trade System, Shanghai Stock Exchange, Shanghai Futures Exchange, and China Financial Futures Exchange were among the 864 financial institutions put on a “white list” of companies allowed to resume work.
Shanghai authorities plan to publish more “white lists” on a weekly basis, allowing more financial firms to resume operations, according to the regulatory bureau notice.
More than 20,000 bankers, traders and other workers have slept over in their office towers in Shanghai’s Lujiazui district since late March to keep China’s giant financial hub running during the lockdown.
Countdown
Health authorities in Shanghai face huge pressure to keep COVID-19 at bay the longer the city goes without a new community infection with residents counting down the days until June 1 and the end of their hated lockdown.
The commercial hub of 25 million achieved a fourth consecutive day without any new infections in the community, keeping hold of its prized “zero COVID” status and keeping alive hopes for an imminent end to lockdown misery.
Despite no new cases, authorities are not lifting the lockdown immediately, instead gradually easing restrictions until June 1, with some shops allowed to open this week and public transport expected to partly resume over the weekend.
Very few people have been getting passes to go outside from the volunteer managers of their residential compounds.
“The risk of finding positive infections among risk groups still exists and the pressure of ... preventing a rebound remains huge,” Zhao Dandan of the municipal health commission told reporters on Wednesday.
Uphill battle
Defeating the highly transmissible Omicron variant has proven an uphill battle, as the struggle in the capital, Beijing, over the past month has shown.
Beijing authorities have been discovering dozens of new cases almost every day since April 22.
While most Beijing residents are working from home, they can at least wander about outside, albeit with few places to go, as many shops, gyms and other businesses have closed in several districts.
Overall, Shanghai reported fewer than 1,000 new cases for May 17, all in areas under the strictest controls, with no new cases found in the relatively freer communities for a fourth day. Beijing reported 69 cases, up from 52.