While much of the world’s output is grinding to a halt because of the coronavirus, China is slowly emerging from its shutdowns by restarting production at factories and resuming some flights.
A recovery in the world’s second largest economy provides some relief for global manufacturers in the months ahead as the outbreak continues to wreak havoc in Europe, US, India, Latin America and South Africa.
Employees are returning to work, production lines are starting to roll and even the original outbreak epicentre of Wuhan is ending its lockdown soon. Car sales in China probably hit a bottom last month and are set to gradually rebound as the spread of the virus slows and consumers return to shopping, an auto industry group said this month.
“Real-time indicators show that China is restarting its industrial complex,” analysts at Sanford C Bernstein said in a note on Tuesday. “Clearly the restart is at an early stage, but things are gradually improving.”
At the nation’s airline industry, whose slump last month decimated its massive aviation market to a size smaller than Portugal’s, carriers are slowly restoring flights. Scheduled capacity rose 2.4% last week from the previous seven days to 9.2 million seats, while all the other top 10 markets in the world continued to decline, according to flight-data analytics firm OAG Aviation Worldwide.
Other signs include Chinese subway traffic increasing 21% last week, and online sales of large appliances rebounding in both volumes and average prices on a week-to-week basis, according to Bernstein. — Reported with assistance from Will Davies and Matt Turner, (c) 2020 Bloomberg LP
