China's manufacturing city Dongguan announces measures to support local companies

          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

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