SOEs band together to soften lockdown blow

State-owned enterprises are sparing no efforts to mitigate the economic and social impacts caused by the ongoing lockdown of Shanghai, local authorities said on Friday.

These efforts included beefing up the supply of staple food, undertaking epidemic prevention and control work, and dishing out financial and tax incentives to businesses, the Shanghai municipal government said during a briefing.

Food corporations like Bright Food, Bailian Group and the city's supply and marketing cooperative have offered 31,000 tons of food staples like rice, flour and cooking oil, 260,000 tons of vegetables, 217,000 tons of meat, poultry and eggs, as well as 29,400 tons of milk.

A total of 1,078 supermarkets and convenient stores, as well as 144 retail pharmacies have resumed business.

A consortium of SOEs have produced 15 million masks, 4.55 million sets of protective gears, some 234 million antigen self-test kits, and 156 tons of disinfectant concentrate to aid the city's anti-epidemic efforts.

Construction enterprises linked to the central government or municipality have also contributed by building makeshift hospitals in Shanghai. Nearly 50,000 rooms transformed from hotel accommodation, public rental housing and training centers have been allocated for quarantine purposes.

Over 80,000 micro-to-small businesses and individual business owners would be exempt from six months of rents should they lease properties owned by State-owned enterprises. Authorities said this would translate to over 10 billion yuan in rent subsidies.

Municipal-level financial vehicles have also offered loans amounting to 64.5 billion yuan to offset the impact of the outbreak.