As China continues to tackle the novel coronavirus outbreak, its industries have started to return to work in an orderly manner. Xi'an, one of the national central cities and an important scientific research, educational and industrial base in China, has recently introduced a number of measures to help enterprises pull through the difficult times and speed up their resumption of production, such as optimizing government services, delaying social security payments, stabilizing employment with subsidies and increasing credit support.
According to statistics released by Xi'an Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, as of February 19, more than 400 enterprises in Xi'an have resumed production. A total of 34 large industrial enterprises have resumed work and production, accounting for 75.6% of all the 45 large industrial enterprises. Production capacity has also been gradually restored, as 9 large enterprises with production and sales of over RMB10 billion have fully or partially resumed production, such as Shaanxi Automobile Holdings Limited and Samsung (China) Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
On February 10, Shaanxi Fast Auto Drive Group Co., Ltd. headquartered in Xi'an, began to resume production. With strictly implemented epidemic prevention measures, it has promptly restarted multiple production lines like the gear processing line in order to meet urgent market needs. On February 14, Shaanxi Automobile Holdings also resumed production, with more than 2,000 employees back to work and one production line restarted. More than 12,000 employees have so far returned to work at Huawei Xi'an Research Institute. Micron Semiconductor (Xi'an) Co., Ltd. has restored 80% of its production capacity.
Xi'an International Trade & Logistics Park, China's largest inland port, has set up a green channel service. With the service, trucks do not need to stop, drivers do not need to get out of their cockpits, and traffic does not need to wait outside of the station. Epidemic prevention measures are fully implemented, such as disinfection and decontamination, temperature measurement and registration. All these measures help ensure the smooth operation of the China-Europe Chang'an freight train service. The China-Europe Chang'an freight train made a total of 200 trips in January, 2.4 times that of the same period last year. Affected by the outbreak, the Chang'an international freight train has slowed down its operation, but it still maintains the frequency of one trip per day.
As enterprises resume production, personnel mobility is increasing. In order to stop the virus from spreading, the Xi'an government provides "one-on-one" services for enterprises returning to work, to help them implement prevention and control measures such as quarantine and observation, nucleic acid testing and environmental decontamination. Meanwhile, the government is fully committed to coordinating efforts to solve problems that these enterprises face regarding personnel, transportation, dining and accommodation. The Xi'an government introduces a number of measures to help small and medium-sized enterprises resume work, such as reducing or exempting rents, providing interest subsidies, and helping enterprises develop markets.
Xi'an will centrally arrange a special fund of 200 million yuan to support the employment of local enterprises, and a special fund of 1 billion yuan to support local enterprises in vocational training for employees. Xi'an will offer a full subsidy for the expenses of the enterprises incurred in transporting employees with booked vehicles and train compartments; offer a partial subsidy for the transportation costs of personnel returning to work on their own; and offer a full subsidy for the costs of nucleic acid testing.
