Shanghai Emerges from Lockdown but it is not “Business as Usual”

Shanghai Emerges from Lockdown but it is not “Business as Usual”

Shanghai is expected to face weeks, if not months, of slow recovery until economic activity is fully restored from the Covid lockdown that began in March. According to local media, barricades at entrances of tunnels, bridges and overpasses were removed and more flights are planned at the city’s airports

Based on the experiences of other Chinese cities like Wuhan in 2020 and Jilin earlier this year, it will take time for shops to reopen or factories to secure supplies and resume production.

It is being reported that most of Shanghai’s 25 million people can move freely, many factories and businesses remain closed or operating below capacity with the world’s largest port remaining backed up and truck traffic is at about a quarter of pre-Covid levels.

In Wuhan, it took until 2021 for the economy to recover from the damage sustained from the initial Covid-19 outbreak in 2020 and the more than two month lockdown that followed. Xian took months to recover from the lockdown that ended in late January this year as retail sales fell 15 per cent year on year throughout Shaanxi province.

The shutdown has been a huge test for global supply chains and while the government has been working on reducing transport bottlenecks, there are still restrictions on drivers crossing into Shanghai or leaving the city to go to other provinces.