By Miranda Li

Jiading District, in northwestern Shanghai, known as China’s auto-making highland, has allowed mostly automobile manufacturers to resume production in the first group after the COVID-19 lockdown. The local government is speeding up preparation for the second round of companies to follow suit.

Deputy Head of Jiading District Li Feng told at the press conference on April 24 that Jiading has formulated a scheme for the resumption of car-making companies.

Jiading District is home to many leading automobile companies, such as Shanghai Vogsaswan and Volvo Sales. It targets to achieve an output value of RMB 100 billion($15.26 billion) for new energy vehicles by 2025.

Li Feng said that among the 666 companies on the whitelist released by the Shanghai municipal government, 125 companies are located in Jiading District, including 97 enterprises in the related automobile industry chain. Among the 73 enterprises that have resumed production in the district, 49 are automobile-related enterprises.

Since April, 211 companies have maintained production in an enclosed way in Jia Ding, with nearly 50,000 employees, and the pandemic occurrence is less than 5% in the enterprises.

The local government has also recently formulated work plans and detailed guidelines on closed-off production operations for more resumption and to keep the pandemic risk under control. “Resumption code” will be applied for return-to-work employees, classified by their work shifts and potential risk exposure, to lower their mobility risks after returning to work.

The manufacturing and living materials entering the factories will be sterilized. At the same time, emergency plans are prepared, with isolation rooms in a certain proportion to the number of back-to-work workers.