What’s new: China‘s Vice Finance Minister Liao Min said he expects more financial policies to be issued to help in the recovery of the country’s logistics industry, which has been severely impacted by the repeated outbreaks of Covid-19.
Liao made the remarks during the Tsinghua PBCSF Global Finance Forum 2022, which began on Saturday in Beijing.
“I expect the financial departments to provide key logistics, warehousing and e-commerce companies with more services designed to keep logistics and their supply chains intact during this special time,” said Liao, who also serves as deputy director of the Office of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission. He did not give specifics.
More effort should be made to help truckers, couriers and taxi drivers repay their debts, as strict Covid-19 restrictions have affected the operations of trucking and delivery firms, according to Liao, adding that the insurance claim process should also be improved for cargo losses caused by force majeure.
More broadly, Liao warned that China’s economy is still facing the “triple pressures” — namely shrinking demand, supply shocks and weakening expectations — especially at a time when the pandemic continues to wreak havoc with the economy.
The background: China has imposed strict lockdowns to contain the spread of the highly infectious omicron variant, particularly in the hard-hit regions of Jilin province and Shanghai, bringing logistics businesses to a standstill.
In order to keep its business running in Shanghai, which is suffering its worst Covid-19 outbreak since the beginning of the pandemic, e-commerce giant JD.com Inc. said on Thursday that it had dispatched more than 100 autonomous delivery vehicles to the city to deal with the last mile of deliveries.
Contact reporter Ding Yi (yiding@caixin.com)
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