While implementing all epidemic prevention and control measures, Shanghai has encouraged foreign enterprises to resume operations in an orderly manner, and has helped those in key industries to reconnect their broken industrial chains.

According to the Shanghai Association of Foreign Investment, 697 key foreign-funded enterprises have successfully resumed production and operations.

More than 90 percent of key service enterprises, about 70 percent of key manufacturing enterprises and more than 80 percent of enterprises in core industries such as integrated circuits and biomedicine have resumed work. Nearly 90 percent of the enterprises with investment from the world's top 500 companies have returned to work.

The outbreak of the epidemic has been by no means an impediment to economic development in Shanghai at the beginning of 2020. However, people also see the other side of the coin: that a great investment environment will be a touchstone for this city.

Setting up reserves of materials for emergency

On Jan 30, the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce took only one day to produce and issue 350 passes for vehicles for enterprises such as Wal-Mart and Carrefour to help them transport materials into the city.

German-based Merck KGaA, the world's leading pharmaceutical and chemical group, made submissions to relevant government departments to resume work, and on Feb 5 its factory resumed partial production, becoming one of the first batch of foreign enterprises to resume production in Shanghai.

Keeping the supply chain going

The Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce successively collected and sorted out the lists of more than 140 foreign-funded enterprises in two batches and reported them to the Shanghai branch of the People's Bank of China to ask that these enterprises receive preferential financing policies.

To date, the financing needs of foreign-funded enterprises have exceeded 12.3 billion yuan ($1.75 billion). The commission of commerce helped 76 enterprises nationwide to solve 142 practical problems such as resumption of production, supply of raw materials, logistics and transport.

Wyeth Nutrition (China) is a representative of maternal and infant industry enterprises. "To ensure a continuous chain, the departments of commerce at both municipal and district levels cooperated with us to build a 'green channel' to ensure that the Wyeth supporting supply chain could  return to work and production," said Cao Jingheng, vice-president of the corporate communications department.

At present, Wyeth Nutrition (China) is mobilizing its global resources and overseas production plants to work together to supply products to the Chinese market.

METRO Cash & Carry gets a "green pass" to transport supplies into Shanghai. [Photo/WeChat account: scofcom]