China’s foreign firms desperate for shift away from ‘old toolbox’ of mass testing, isolation to combat Omicron
- EU Chamber of Commerce in China sends letter to Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua and implores leadership to take a less-disruptive course of action
- Recent surveys by other foreign business groups in China have recorded similar sentiments amid a growing public outcry over zero-Covid strategy
The time has come for Beijing to adjust its unwavering zero-Covid policy that has resulted in a serious disruption of economic activities, an influential foreign business association said in a letter to Vice-Premier Hu Chunhua.
The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China sent the letter, dated Friday, amid a growing outcry over disruptions to daily lives and business resulting from measures such as mass testing and large-scale lockdowns.
“The Omicron variant is posing new challenges that seemingly cannot be overcome by applying the old toolbox of mass testing and isolation, and the social and economic costs of applying increasingly stringent measures to achieve this are rapidly mounting,” chamber president Joerg Wuttke said in the letter obtained by the South China Morning Post.
“This is also having an unfortunate impact on China’s image to the rest of the world, while eroding foreign investors’ confidence in the Chinese market.”
The European Chamber understands that … the decision to pursue a zero-tolerance strategy was not taken lightly
The chamber raised three proposals to revise the current pandemic-control measures, “to bring them in line with the successful model that has been adopted in Singapore, which has allowed the country to simultaneously prioritise protection for all its citizens and economic growth”.