Local govts launch steps to help companies restart production

Local government departments across China have rolled out supportive measures to help businesses to resume production after the Lunar New Year holiday that was extended due to the novel coronavirus pneumonia.

Provinces and regions including Ningxia Hui autonomous region, provinces of Jilin, Gansu, Guizhou and Hunan, as well as Shenzhen have released supportive measures over the weekend to support and sustain the development of medium and small-sized enterprises.

These measures provide support in various fields, including streamlining the process of administrative approval, providing favorable fiscal and insurance support, stabilizing workforce, easing enterprises' burden on rents and tax , as well as favorable measures on financing.

Government departments in Jilin and Ningxia have put forward related measures by returning part of the unemployment insurance enterprises paid for their workers in last year to encourage enterprise not to sack workers.

Measures released in Guizhou on Saturday include those on resuming production in the poverty alleviation sector and major projects in the province.

Guizhou government urged related departments to guide farmers prepare for the coming spring farming and carry out policies of subsidizing farmers on seeds and agricultural machines. It also regulated on promoting the agricultural business in the province by expanding the production scale of high-efficient economic crops.

Direct money reward will be given to enterprises which resume production located in the economic and technological development zone of Lanzhou, Gansu, ranging from 100,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan. Enterprises involved in the foreign trade who have contributed to preventing and controlling the NCP will earn rewards ranging from 300,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan according to their export and import volume performance, according to the regulations released by the zone over the weekend.

Gansu also released rules on supporting research institutions and innovative enterprises to do research in areas of treatment methods, drugs, detecting techniques and medical equipment that can be used in the fight against the NCP.

Supportive measures rolled out by Shenzhen government on Saturday will save cost of 60 billion yuan for enterprises through ways of reducing cost such as on rents and tax, providing subsidies and postponing the social security payment. Shenzhen government will allocate 10 billion yuan to help medium and small-sized enterprises tackle problems,

Production organs are urged to restart production on the basis of well-done epidemic prevention and control work.

"We will work as the back-up of enterprises to help them resume production," said Peng Ruilin, Party secretary of Xiangxiang, Hunan province, adding several enterprises in the city that produce medical materials have already started production during the Lunar New Year holiday to aid in fighting against the epidemic.