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Shanghai reopening
BusinessChina Business

Zero-Covid pivot puts Shanghai’s small businesses on emotional roller-coaster as curbs loosened, infections surge

  • Beijing’s efforts to soften its anti-pandemic approach work like a double-edged sword for small businesses as infections temper optimism
  • Failure to tackle the pandemic in the coming months can deliver a fatal blow to businesses, CEO of a printing material firm says

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People walk along Nanjing Pedestrian Road, a main shopping area in Shanghai in May 2021. Photo: Reuters
Daniel Renin Shanghai
After struggling for nearly a year to stay afloat under the zero-Covid regime, small businesses in Shanghai are having mixed feelings about Beijing’s policy pivot. Concerns about a resurgence in cases are tempering optimism that the good old days are back for good.
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Some owners in China’s main commercial hub believe they will soon be able to restore manufacturing and commercial activities to pre-lockdown levels in 2019, while others fear customers will shun public venues like eateries and malls in the coming months.

“It is a do-or-die moment for us,” said Han Haifeng, chief executive of Shanghai New Era Printing, which currently produces 60 per cent of its normal annual output of packaging materials. “We will have to cut jobs further, if the country cannot overcome the pandemic in the next one or two months.”

For export-oriented companies like New Era Printing, a two-month citywide lockdown in April and May has delivered a big blow to its bottom line. A 100,000 yuan (US$14,375) loss for the year may be palatable for now “but we cannot afford to suffer more [losses],” he said. “The 10-point guideline appears to be a double-edged sword to small businesses.”

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Excitement and anxiety as China starts to reopen after zero-Covid

Excitement and anxiety as China starts to reopen after zero-Covid

The State Council last week issued more guidelines to soften its anti-pandemic approach, scrapping daily mass testing, health codes and centralised quarantine requirements for most cases. Investors have helped lift the value of local stocks by US$11 billion since an earlier directive on November 11 fuelled so-called reopening bets.

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