Sun Jianjiang, head of the department of commerce in Suzhou, introduced the city’s foreign trade development amid the fight against COVID-19 outbreak during a press conference on February 23. 

Sun said 11 foreign-funded and foreign trade firms in Suzhou Industrial Park, Wuzhong District and Xiangcheng District have temporarily halted operation after reporting positive cases.  

File photo of Suzhou Industrial Park/CFP

Local authorities are working together to guide these companies to make plans for reopening as early as possible provided they meet the requirements.  

At present, more than 30,000 foreign-funded and foreign trade companies in Suzhou are generally operating normally, but some have also encountered difficulties due to the outbreak, said Sun. 

The problems include the disruption to supply chain caused by restrictions over transportation and people’s movement enforced in neighboring cities, as well as the challenge to recruit new employees while staff members living in areas placed under quarantine can’t go to work.  

The commerce department has worked with the transportation and other agencies to ease the logistics difficulties, such as issuing emergency passes and opening up green channels, according to Sun. 

Sun pledged that the commerce department will make more efforts to support the COVID-19-hit enterprises and promote the stable growth of foreign trade. For example, one measure is to coordinate with departments of human resources and social security and healthcare in offering health checks at some hospitals, allowing enterprises to recruit their workers easily.  

Contact us at english@jschina.com.cn