Worries about the Chinese economy occur as many provinces of the country have 
postponed business operations of some companies, shops and factories in an 
effort to curb the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). However, Dongguan, 
the south China manufacturing city, has been taking actions to help local 
companies address difficulties and impacts brought by the epidemic.

The Information Office of the Guangdong Provincial Government held the press 
conference recently, on which the work resumption situation of Dongguan was 
introduced. By the night of Feb. 10, Dongguan has seen the orderly and off-peak 
work resumption of 4,491 local enterprises, with 79.54% of them belonging to 
the manufacturing industry.  

"The epidemic poses no threat to Dongguan's future overall development," said 
Liu Jintang, deputy director of Bureau of Industry and Information Technology 
of Dongguan. The city's industry has 7.4% average annual growth rate, occupying 
13.3% of the added value of industrial companies above the designated scale of 
Guangdong province, with the added value of advanced manufacturing and hi-tech 
manufacturing industries accounting for 54.2% and 42.2% respectively. "Data 
prove the resilience and anti-risk ability of Dongguan's economy." added Liu. 
The epidemic will have adverse impact on Dongguan's industrial growth to some 
extent in the first half of this year, especially in the first quarter. But in 
the long run, its positive economic fundamentals and high quality development 
remain unchanged, as Liu estimated.

To cope with the negative influences of the epidemic, Dongguan announces 
positive policies. On Feb. 7, 15 policies were introduced to support local 
enterprises, including 55 preferential measures like rental-exemption or 
rental-free, tax reduction, loan transfer and renewal, talents introduction. 
The move aims to promote the resumption of small and medium-sized companies and 
reduces the bad influences of epidemic to businesses to the minimum level.

It is estimated the measures will help relieve the burden of companies with a 
total value of 2.5 billion yuan. Specifically, the measure of providing 
subsidies to stabilize employment formulated by the Human Resources and Social 
Security Bureau of Dongguan will help relieve the burden of companies with a 
total value of 168 million yuan. More than 190 thousand companies and 1.21 
million employees will benefit from it.

Companies face such unexpected challenges brought by epidemic control and work 
resumption delay as labour insufficiency, bearing negative impacts on the 
normal operation and production of manufacturing companies in Dongguan.

To help enterprises recruit suitable employees as soon as possible, Dongguan 
has launched an online job fair, releasing a total of 83,000 job demand 
information from 1,153 enterprises. A special post column for job demand on 
epidemic prevention and control necessities has been set up, which can improve 
recruitment efficiency.

Song Qinggang, an entrepreneur in local advertising industry, said the policies 
Dongguan released to support enterprises are very useful, like tax reduction 
and rental reduction, reducing the burden for operation and giving great 
support and encouragement to manufacturing enterprises.

In addition, Dongguan has also promoted a number of measures just in time to 
support the local manufacturing industry, especially small and medium-sized 
enterprises. On Feb. 6, Dongguan released the upgraded action plan to support 
local enterprises, introducing ten measures from the two aspects of increasing 
capital and expanding production, and optimizing development environment, to 
facilitate the city's industrial transformation and upgrading.

Meanwhile, Dongguan further strengthens its service capacity for small and 
medium-sized enterprises. The local government comprehensively integrates data 
related to enterprises, coordinating resources elements of land, technology, 
capital, talent and other aspects, and further optimizes relevant functions of 
the information platform called "Qi Guan Jia". Offline and online measures are 
combined to improve service quality. Moreover, the working mechanism of 
enterprise service specialist has been specially set up to make the service 
more professional.

Local government and enterprises are optimistic about whether businesses will 
be affected after the outbreak. "Once the outbreak is under control, the 
consumption and investment delayed earlier will be released, and the industrial 
economy of Dongguan will show compensatory growth," said Liu. The temporary 
suppression of market demand might lead to a rebound in orders across 
industries.

Source: Bureau of Industry and Information Technology of Dongguan