COVID-19: China’s Dongguan announces measures supporting local companies

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 17 -- The postponement of business operations involving some companies, shops and factories in China’s provinces to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has caused worries about the economy.

Dongguan, the south China manufacturing city, has taken actions to help local companies address difficulties and impacts brought by the epidemic, according to the Bureau of Industry and Information Technology of Dongguan.

The Information Office of the Guangdong Provincial Government recently held a press conference on the Dongguan work resumption situation. Dongguan has seen the orderly and off-peak work resumption of 4,491 local enterprises, of which 79.54 per cent are linked to the manufacturing industry.

To cope with the negative influences of the epidemic, Dongguan has announced positive policies whereby 15 policies were introduced to support local enterprises, including 55 preferential measures like rental-exemption or rental-free, tax reduction and loan transfer.

The move aims to promote the resumption of small and medium-sized companies and reduces the bad influences of epidemic to businesses. It is estimated the measures will help relieve the burden of companies with a total value of 2.5 billion yuan. (100 yuan = RM59.25)

Specifically, the measure of providing subsidies to stabilise employment will help relieve the burden of companies with a total value of 168 million yuan, benefitting over 190,000 companies and 1.21 million employees.

In addition, to help enterprises recruit suitable employees as soon as possible, Dongguan has launched an online job fair, releasing 83,000 job demand information from 1,153 enterprises.

Dongguan has also promoted a number of measures just in time to support the local manufacturing industry, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. It further strengthens its service capacity for the enterprises.

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.

-- BERNAMA