The BioNTech/Pfizer mRNA vaccine is not widely available on the mainland but has long been available for free to permanent residents of Hong Kong and Macau as Beijing allowed the two territories to pursue a different vaccination strategy.

China Citic Bank International’s offer, which comes after mainland China removed cross-border restrictions with Hong Kong, illustrates Chinese citizens’ desire for western vaccines despite official criticism of the jabs. China has seen a surge in infections after the sudden reversal of Beijing’s zero-Covid policy last month.

“An insurance company from the mainland [asked] us about the service and [is] considering organising group vaccination tours for [staff],” the clinic told the Financial Times. Another clinic, Swindon Medical, said their first batch of 100 jabs were already booked out.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Gloria Li

While China remains submerged in an unprecedented wave of the virus, with tens of millions infected daily, the world’s second-largest economy is starting to show signs of coming back to life following the decision this month to abruptly dismantle the draconian zero-Covid system that sought to control the virus at the cost of keeping the country isolated.

Investors and analysts predict a brighter year ahead after Covid disrupted supply chains and forced stoppages on factory floors, as the economy recovers and begins to reconnect with the rest of the world. Demand for international travel is expected to surge when centralised quarantine for arrivals ends on January 8 and China allows citizens to renew expired passports.

Iris Pang, chief China economist at ING, suggested that the “timing is not perfect” for China’s reopening because of the risk that a US and European recession would hit demand for goods.

Hua Yifan, a manager at Jiaxing-based clothing manufacturer Shanhui Dress, said that production at his factory had been shut down because of supply shortages and sick workers.

“But I still remain confident,” he said. “If we can get through the winter, the temporary shutdown will not be a big deal.”

Ryan McMorrow and Xinning Liu in Beijing, Thomas Hale and Sun Yu in Shanghai, Leo Lewis in Tokyo and Gloria Li in Hong Kong

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Gloria Li

Beijing has not approved any foreign Covid-19 vaccines for use by its citizens, instead relying on jabs from Chinese groups Sinovac and Sinopharm. Analysts have said these provide lower levels of immunity than western alternatives, which use mRNA technology.

But an abrupt U-turn by Beijing this month on its former zero-Covid policy of containing the disease has sparked an explosion of cases and prompted a surge in the number of mainlanders seeking mRNA jabs in Macau. The former Portuguese colony and special administrative region is the only place outside mainland China where the country‘s citizens can travel without having to quarantine on return.

The brisk business of vaccine tourism in Macau has quickly given rise to middlemen who charge fees to arrange travel and other logistics. Viola, a Macau-based insurance agent, told the Financial Times that she charged $60 to arrange vaccination sessions for her mainland clients.

One 27-year-old management consultant, who identified himself only as Wan, and his wife paid $170 each for one dose of the mRNA vaccine after deciding against being injected with domestic alternatives.

The consultant said the couple had concerns about the efficacy of Chinese vaccines and a “lack of transparency over the trial data”.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Gloria Li

The order to local governments follows moves to reopen the country after nearly three years of a stifling elimination strategy for Covid-19 that has led to lockdowns and border closures, hitting business.

The State Council, China’s cabinet, said long-haul truckers should no longer have to work on “closed loop arrangements”, under which they have been subjected to long quarantines, and said authorities should not subject them to constant PCR testing.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Gloria Li

Social media posts alleged that restrictions in the capital of Xinjiang province, which has been locked down since August, hampered rescue efforts and the ability of residents to escape the fire in an apartment block on Thursday evening.

Unverified videos of protests in the city on Friday evening were widely circulated. Officials on Saturday denied some of the claims about the fire and said certain images online of locked doors were fake, China’s state media agency Xinhua reported.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Gloria Li

The world’s second-biggest economy reported almost 28,000 new Covid cases on Tuesday, with outbreaks in the Chinese capital, the southern manufacturing hub of Guangzhou and the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing continuing to grow.

Chinese officials in Beijing shut most non-essential businesses in the city’s largest district, Chaoyang, which has a population of 3.4mn, and have closed restaurants and other entertainment venues in much of the city, while telling residents to work from home.

The Shanghai lockdowns slowed economic growth in the second quarter to a 0.4 per cent rise from a year earlier. China’s web of Covid restrictions have continued to batter the economy, with retail sales declining 0.5 per cent in October and industrial output subdued.

The worsening outbreak and increasingly tough measures nationwide come despite demands from Beijing less than two weeks ago to ease up on Covid controls, which sparked a market rally for Chinese stocks.

Growing caseloads in China have since weighed on market sentiment as traders, once hopeful for an economic boost from reopening, become more concerned about intensifying disruption from the lockdowns.

China’s CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed shares was flat on Tuesday and has fallen more than 2.5 per cent since last week’s optimism-driven high over reopening. The benchmark index is down about a quarter in the year to date.

Rising cases have required a growing number of apartment buildings in Beijing to be quarantined, putting local officials and residents under stress. An official in Shilipu, a community in the capital, said he and nine colleagues were struggling to serve more than 7,000 households under home quarantine.

“Our capacity has been stretched,” he said.

In Chongqing, another pandemic hotspot, the arrival on Monday of Sun Chunlan, a vice-premier known for her draconian approach to battling the pandemic, led to widespread panic shopping among residents, concerned about the potential for a tough Shanghai-style lockdown.

“While I have stocked 10 days of food in my refrigerator, I still feel insecure,” said Dave Yin, a business owner in the southwestern metropolis. “I bought another 5kg of pork and six packages of vegetables just in case.”

Guangzhou, the site of another serious outbreak, has continued to report high caseloads, recording 8,210 new infections on Monday. The city has attempted to control the spread of the virus without a citywide lockdown, but on Monday it put its largest district, Baiyun, with a population of 3.8mn, into a five-day lockdown.

The move expanded the lockdown from the southern district of Haizhu, which houses many of the city’s garment factories and has already extended its own lockdown several times.

Additional reporting by Nian Liu in Beijing

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Gloria Li

Local officials from cities around the region on Monday continued to bus workers away from the Zhengzhou plant, where staff say the company has failed to provide adequate food and a safe working environment during Apple’s peak production period.

“With the current pandemic situation it is a protracted war to do a good job keeping more than 200,000 employees safe,” Foxconn said in a stock exchange filing on Sunday evening. Shares in Hon Hai Precision Industry, Foxconn’s Taiwan-listed entity, fell 1.4 per cent on Monday.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley said they were monitoring the situation with the fourth quarter “peak season for iPhone shipments”.

“Zhengzhou is one of Foxconn’s major production sites, particularly for iPhone assembly,” they said in a report, noting the factory complex represented about 60 per cent of Foxconn’s iPhone assembly capacity.

Authorities have locked down swaths of Zhengzhou in an attempt to control the city’s latest Covid outbreak. The city of more than 10mn on Monday reported 40 new Covid cases.

Foxconn and Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Gloria Li

The huge factory complex in the city of Zhengzhou, which workers say produces Apple’s iPhone 14, is the latest manufacturing centre to be hobbled by President Xi Jinping’s tough zero-Covid policies.

Five workers who spoke to the Financial Times said that the situation at the plant had gradually deteriorated, as food and medical supplies ran low and workers began to be locked in dormitory rooms for quarantine — causing hundreds of employees to flee on foot over the weekend.

But on Sunday, local authorities were scrambling to organise buses to bring those workers home and into centralised quarantine, after scenes of workers tramping down the highway with bags flooded Chinese social media. The FT saw hundreds of workers registering to claim rides home in social media groups.

“I will never go back to Foxconn,” said a worker surnamed Xu, who escaped the plant at 2am on Sunday. “They don’t have humanity there.” He and four friends were on the highway, walking more than 200km to their homes in Xin’an county, Henan, he said.

Authorities in Zhengzhou have partially locked down the city of 10mn after dozens of Covid cases were found. Unlike the rest of the world, China continues to use lockdowns, strict quarantines and mass testing in an attempt to eradicate coronavirus.

This story originally appeared on: Financial Times - Author:Gloria Li