Tesla, Covestro among Shanghai’s foreign firms lobbying to ease truck movements as cases soar to 23,624

Name: Original Wuhan ‘ground zero’ hospital workers aid Shanghai in battle against Covid-19
Uploaded: 2022-04-08T23:30:29.000Z
Duration: 1 min 38 s
Description: Original Wuhan ‘ground zero’ hospital workers aid Shanghai in battle against Covid-19

Shanghai’s confirmed cases increased by 23,624 on Saturday, with the number of symptomatic infections rising to 1,015 from Friday’s 824 cases

Logistics the biggest challenge, while uncertainties surround cross-provincial transport and supply along value chain: German hi-tech plastics firm Covestro

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Workers wearing protective gear sort bags of vegetables and groceries on a truck to distribute them to residents at a residential compound, during the lockdown to curb the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Shanghai on April 5, 2022. Photo: China Daily via Reuters

Daniel Ren,Holly ChikandMandy Zuo

Published: 7:30am, 9 Apr 2022Updated: 11:40pm, 11 Apr 2022

Tesla and Covestro are among foreign multinationals lobbying China’s government to allow more truck drivers to work between Shanghai and other regions, as their operations were hit hard by the city’s Covid-19 containment measures.

Some major businesses have been allowed by the city’s government to continue operating with a “closed-loop system”, which essentially means that workers are living at production sites to avoid contact with outsiders. These companies are now facing a shortage of truck drivers allowed to transport goods between provinces.

Tesla’s Gigafactory 3, for instance, has been unable to obtain components to keep its production lines going since late last month because of a lack of special passes for truck drivers amid Shanghai’s lockdown, according to an executive with a car component maker, who did not want to be identified.

“Logistics constraints remain the biggest challenge, and there are uncertainties with regards to especially cross-provincial transport and supply along the value chain, which may force us to further adjust the load of some plants in the days to come,” said Richard Fu, a spokesman for German company Covestro, which produces hi-tech plastics for industrial applications. “We are closely monitoring the situation, which is changing very fast.”

Shanghai’s confirmed cases increased by 23,624 on Saturday, with the number of symptomatic infections rising to 1,015 from Friday’s 824 cases, according to local health authorities. That’s the eighth consecutive day of record-setting cases, underscoring the pressure on local authorities to contain the spread of the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

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Original Wuhan ‘ground zero’ hospital workers aid Shanghai in battle against Covid-19

Shanghai, a city of 25 million residents and China’s financial capital, has reported record numbers of new Omicron infections for seven days in a row, and Friday’s tally stood at 21,222 cases.

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