[unable to retrieve full-text content]China’s vehicle industry took a deep dive last month, as Shanghai went into a citywide lockdown, which idled car plants from General Motors to Tesla and Volkswagen.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Shanghai’s authorities have set June 1 as the date for officially lifting the city’s two-month long lockdown, aiming to restore China’s commercial and financial hub to normality by the end of the month.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]As the city records a third day without community infections, the government announces that schools, parks, offices and residential compounds will require health-app scans when lockdown easing begins.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]No cases were discovered in low-risk unguarded zones, indicating that the mainland’s commercial and financial capital is able to limit infections to only people in quarantine.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Faced with the mixed results, Shanghai’s health authorities are not letting up, even if more manufacturers and public services have been allowed to resume operations.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The tentative steps in keeping Covid-19 at bay boosted the confidence of Shanghai’s authorities, as they prepared to allow 273 bus routes and four of the 19 subway lines to reopen on Sunday.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The fourth straight day without new Covid-19 infections in low-risk, unguarded zones keeps the mainland’s commercial and financial hub on track for a phased easing of restrictions.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Societal zero-Covid is a watershed moment in Shanghai’s anti-pandemic work, after which the city will ease the draconian virus control measures that have upended daily lives and strained global supply chains.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The end is in sight for one of the largest mass population lockdowns ever undertaken in China, after stop works and standstill orders upended daily lives and strained global supply chains close to breaking point.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The city is aiming to achieve its ‘societal zero-Covid’ target by May 20, Wu Qing, the city’s executive vice-mayor, told a press briefing on Friday morning.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]China’s automobiles industry lost 1 million vehicles in production last month amid severe lockdown measures introduced to contain outbreaks of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of Covid-19.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The declining infection numbers led to renewed calls by residents and businesses for Shanghai’s authorities to relax some of its lockdown and standstill orders.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Infections of the highly transmissible Omicron variant had been in steady decline in Shanghai since April 23, holding below 5,000 cases for the past eight days.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan instructed local officials to double down on lockdown controls to identify and quarantine every single case even though the overall outbreak is showing signs of abating.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]While Shanghai recorded its lowest daily number of new cases since April 5, Beijing added a record number of new infections amid heightened concerns that a severe outbreak is developing.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The standstill order was extended as infections were spreading in unguarded areas with the movements of medical officers and volunteers. By Thursday, a total 250 cases were detected at the unguarded zones.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]The rising number of symptomatic patients kept health authorities on their toes, prompting Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan to warn the city to double down on efforts to achieve societal zero-Covid at the highest-risk areas.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Shanghai has been trying to resume production at 666 key manufacturers, including Tesla and the country’s largest chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp oration (SMIC).

[unable to retrieve full-text content]As many as 390,000 residents in Shanghai – out of a total population of 25 million -have been infected by the highly transmissible Omicron variant since March 1, with 27,200 showing symptoms.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Local authorities are embarking on a plan to gradually restore production and business activity in China’s commercial centre after more than two weeks of lockdown

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Shanghai’s local authorities locked the entire city down on April 5, and confined most of the city’s 25 million residents – except emergency workers and medical staff – to their homes to contain a Covid-19 outbreak.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan instructed local authorities on Thursday to close any “loopholes,” after the Chinese president doubled down on his government’s pursuit of a dynamic zero-Covid goal.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]“Virus control measures must be strictly implemented” in strict adherence to science, President Xi Jinping said on Wednesday, adding that the antivirus campaign must minimise economic and social impact.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Authorities are taking no chances with the highly transmissible Omicron variant, ordering another round of testing – at least the seventh time in as many days – in the highest “lockdown zones.”

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Beijing has ordered all provincial-level governments to keep airports, harbours and main roads open so that transport and logistics links can be maintained amid strict anti-pandemic controls.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Shanghai has reported 114,000 cases since the latest wave of outbreaks started on March 1, raking up more cases in a month than the previous two years combined.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Shanghai’s stock exchange is going to extraordinary lengths to keep the bigger half of the world’s second-largest capital market ticking, locking technicians, compliance officers and back-office clerks in the building, as China’s premier commercial city goes into a rolling lockdown to contain a resurgent outbreak of Covid-19. Hundreds of staff at the bourse are working in a “closed loop”, essentially living in the office, to ensure trading goes on as normal after the whole of Pudong New Area…

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Tesla will suspend all operations at its Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai for two days to allow health authorities to test every employee for the Omicron variant as the Covid-19 outbreak threatens to flare up again in China’s commercial hub.Production of Tesla’s Model 3 electric sedans and Model Y sports-utility vehicles (SUVs) will be halted on Wednesday and Thursday while the factory is sealed off, according to two people familiar with the arrangement. Tesla’s spokespeople did not respond to…

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Tesla’s dominance in the world’s largest electric car market may come increasingly under pressure in the Year of the Tiger, as China’s home-grown brands develop new models to pick up the slack left by Elon Musk’s company.To get there, NIO, Xpeng Motors and Li Auto – the three most aggressive local EV start-ups – will have to spend heavily to assemble and launch smart, all-electric vehicles amid the lingering shortage of semiconductor chips that may leave a 20 per cent shortfall in this year’s…

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Mainland Chinese consumers’ spending on luxury items is unlikely to recover to pre-Covid-19 levels any time soon, owing to limited international travel and a bearish view on the economy, global consultancy Bain and Company said.“We expect Chinese consumers’ personal luxury purchases to recover to pre-Covid levels between the end of 2022 and the first half of 2023,” said Xing Weiwei, a partner at Bain. “This will be supported by continuous repatriation of spending and boosted by the gradual…