The Chinese city that provides the bulk of the world’s Christmas products started to get back to business on Sunday after a 10-day lockdown that choked economic activity, but restrictions remained in place in some of the country’s major tourist hotspots.
A city wide-lockdown that went into force on Aug 11 – in the middle of the peak production season for the many local Christmas decoration manufacturers and exporters – was officially lifted on Sunday, allowing businesses to resume operations.Many local enterprises had expressed concern that the lockdown would prevent overseas clients from placing orders for fear of supply chain disruption.
The city is also offering cash rebates of up to 200,000 yuan to businesses and 3,000 yuan to taxi drivers who were affected by the lockdown. A majority of the confirmed cases were in Hainan, with 1,065 positives, most of them asymptomatic, on Saturday. Sanya, the island’s main centre for tourism, was the worst-affected area.