Author Shen Yan
A restaurant uses robots to deliver meals to customers` desks in shanghai, china, march 19,2020. REUTERS/Aly Song
BEIJING (Reuters)- A barbecue near Beijing`s South Fourth Ring Road opened for the first time since the outbreak began on April 2, with only a few lighting lights in the restaurant at Noda and only two tables and five guests during the prime time of lunch.
"When can Beijing community release ban return to normal? "Mr. Dong, one of the partners in the barbecue shop, said helplessly ," It`s hard now, and the most scarce cash flow for our food and beverage is estimated that one third of the food and beverage will have to close down again. "
A badminton court in the third ring of Beijing also issued a notice to members recently ," due to the impact of the epidemic, the stadium losses are serious, it is decided that this badminton court will not renew the lease, will be from April 10 to 30,2020, the member refund procedures. There are also sports and leisure places such as gyms where such notices are issued.
A large part of the reason for the non-renewal is that the rental of some sports venues is inevitable, and the resumption of business is far away.
A year`s rent of 700,000 yuan, operating an area of more than 1,000 square meters of the stadium, Mr. Zhang admitted that the venue rental party clearly stated that the rent will not be reduced, on the grounds that they also need rent to support the survival of the site, and the rental party of the site is not operated by government department. But I don`t know when I can open it. in this case can only choose stop loss.
On the first floor of a large shopping mall in the fourth ring west, the "walk-and-go" ad at a travel company store is still there, but the store is empty, and the front room with a rental label is obviously more than that.
China`s economic society is clearly affected by the epidemic. Although the domestic epidemic situation has improved, but with the increase of imported cases abroad, the situation of prevention and control of the epidemic in Beijing, the capital, has suddenly escalated. It is clearly unknown how much of the bitter consumer-services industry, especially in beijing, can survive the outbreak of the cold winter "live to" spring blooming season.
The results of the fourth economic Census published by the State Bureau of Statistics show that by the end of 2018, the proportion of self-employed households in urban tertiary industry in China reached 37%, which is far higher than 13% in the secondary industry, with the proportion of catering tourism (76%) and resident service (75%) being particularly high.
Xu hejian, deputy minister of the propaganda department of the beijing municipal party committee, said at a press conference on the prevention and control of the epidemic in beijing that the current situation of prevention and control of the epidemic in the capital is still grim and complex, and should not be taken lightly. Under the situation of accelerating the spread of the global epidemic situation, as the capital of the international communication center, Beijing, the prevention and control of the epidemic situation is impossible in the short term, and it is very likely to be in the state of epidemic prevention and control for a long time.
The Premier of the State Council chaired a meeting Li Keqiang Monday central the leading group on the response to the outbreak of new crown pneumonia, calling for further prevention of cross-border imports of land border outbreaks. The meeting pointed out that the current outbreak outside the country showed an increasing trend, the risk of land border entry increased, the number of confirmed cases at land ports of entry recently exceeded the number of confirmed cases at air ports of entry, all border port entry personnel should be closed-loop management.
** economic activity recovery appears to be a bottleneck**
Although the sudden outbreak of the world has caused chaos. Moody`s recently released its global macro outlook for 2020-2021, adding that the pneumonia epidemic will have an unprecedented impact on global economic and that countries` fiscal and monetary authorities are increasingly supporting their economic to avoid permanent damage to households and businesses. China`s real GDP growth rate is forecast to be 3.3% this year and 6.0% in 2021. A slow improvement in consumer demand will slow China`s economic recovery.
China is particularly quick to support the economic of an epidemic-stricken entity, which is now a global goal. Less than a month later, on friday the central bank again announced a targeted cut in reserve requirements for small and medium-sized banks by one percentage point, while unexpectedly cutting interest rates on excess reserves for the first time in more than 11 years.
But it is clear that China, which is trying to get back to work, is also struggling to balance health care with economic ". China-tai securities reported that although more than two months after the inflection point of the epidemic in china and the number of new cases has remained low, from high-frequency data, economic recovery seems to have entered a bottleneck period.
"For example, we use the six major power plants` daily coal consumption as a proportion of the same period last year to measure the extent of economic recovery, which has gradually recovered since late February, but the rate of increase has slowed significantly since late March and has largely remained between 80 and 90 per cent for more than half a month. As a result, some economic activities are still difficult to recover in the short term, and in addition to the most basic and necessary food, clothing, housing and transportation, especially for services and non-essential goods, the recovery of consumption is still very difficult. The report states that
This can also be seen in the context of population movements. From the current situation, almost all cities have not returned to normal traffic congestion. And public transport data are worse. Beijing`s subway passenger flow is only 25% of the normal level, and Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hangzhou are in better condition, and only about half of the normal level.
** How much can support policy? **
To deal with the harm caused by the epidemic situation to enterprises, in addition to the central government issued a series of policies, including financial and fiscal support measures, local government also issued local policies to support local enterprises. For example, Beijing`s response to the impact of the new coronavirus infection pneumonia epidemic to promote the sustainable and healthy development of small and medium-sized enterprises, including small and medium-sized enterprises rent reduction, further increase in credit, reduce corporate financing costs and so on.
Consumer services such as catering and entertainment, which are struggling with the epidemic, see the dawn of "living ", but how much help can be economic, to small and micro-entity with different needs and different dilemmas?
"Although the VAT rate has fallen from 3 per cent to 1 per cent, many businesses have not opened in the past two months, and the decline in the tax rate has no meaning for us. In this case, it is better to exempt small and micro enterprises from tax altogether and to reflect the sincerity of the policy. "Ms. Wang, who runs a 150-square-meter shop in the Lighting City, said that when asked whether the rent in the Lighting City would be reduced ," I don`t know until now, but I have n` t been informed. "
Mr. Dong, who opened the restaurant, and Mr. Lu, who opened a supermarket, also failed to enjoy the rent relief. "Are individual landlords, relief is not mandatory, tens of thousands of monthly rent who give you relief? "Mr. Dong said helplessly.
Another featherball house, which had been quietly opened and was open only to members, also specified that registration should be made before admission, the venue should not be fully opened, only one block apart, and that doubles should only be played in singles and masks should be worn.
Mr. Mao, who had just come down from the field, said ," It`s not a ball. It`s a crime. People are suffocating. "However, the stadium, which had only been on trial for one day, had to be closed the next day because of report.
Under the background that epidemic prevention and control is greater than day, all unconventional measures have their rationality. With the domestic epidemic slowing down and the pressure of external defense input rising sharply now, how to balance prevention and control with the normal return to production and life is clearly a dilemma, especially how the help measures for epidemic trapped enterprises can really help in place, obviously need the wisdom of policymakers.
Dong frankly said, now the most difficult is that although government said that can resume production, but catering to normal business procedures are also very troublesome, there is a pile of inspection and application, and opened if there are no guests or very few how to do? Are not enough to compensate, because the ingredients to be prepared, the salary of the staff must also be sent, are all need real gold and silver to support, open or not open? This makes it difficult for companies to make choices.
In late february, the china hotel association conducted a second round of industry surveys that showed that the overall turnover of the catering industry fell by more than 90% year-on-year, and the cash flow was difficult. Food enterprises bear the burden of fixed expenditure, serious losses. In the survey enterprises, the average daily loss amount is RMB 303500, of which 84.54% of the daily loss amount of food enterprises is about 126000.
For mr dong government it doesn`t seem significant to encourage financial institutions to lend at low interest rates to troubled companies during the outbreak. On the one hand, he just got a loan at about 5% at the end of last year. Although he can apply for about 2% low interest loans during the outbreak, it is obviously unrealistic to borrow new or old, whether in time or in specific process operation.
According to him, such low-interest loans don`t do much for them, and while applying for loans can help companies sustain themselves for some time, they will only carry more debt. until expectations of when to return to normal life are unclea
"The impact of the epidemic on the services sector is clear. Why can`t policies introduce some more uniform measures against the epidemic? In particular, rent relief can not have a uniform regulation? Besides, why can`t Beijing just pass the normal health code like other cities? Now many cities in the mainland have normal production and life, what we need most is when we can return to normal production and life order, which is better than anything, but now even this expectation is not ah! "said Mr. Dong with emotion.
Huatai`s report says the extent of public transport recovery is actually a crucial measure of economic recovery, as it directly reflects residents` willingness to spend in public. If people do not even dare to take the subway, bus, it is difficult to expect them to go to restaurants, cinemas to spend, because consumer activities will involve the indoor gathering of people.
"What is the peace of the country, that is, the traffic outside, eating, shopping malls crowded, even road congestion also feel happy. It`s like you ca n` t go out now! I hope life gets back to normal. "Retired elder sister Zhang said with emotion.
