Less than a week after the lockdown was imposed, the tech metropolis of Shenzhen in southern China ordered the partial lifting of epidemic restrictions on Friday. The decision of the town hall of the city of 17.5 million inhabitants, located at the gates of Hong Kong, comes as President Xi Jinping called on Thursday to “minimize” the impact of anti-Covid measures on the Chinese economy. .
The southern city, which brings together thousands of factories of big names in technology, had been placed in total confinement on Sunday following the detection of Covid cases linked to the ongoing epidemic in Hong Kong. From now on, public transport can resume, as well as the administrations and economic activity in five districts of the city, announced the town hall on Thursday evening.
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The transmission of Covid has been stopped in these five districts, which represent almost half of the vast territory of the municipality, argued the municipality. Among the districts concerned is that of Yantian, where one of the largest ports in the world is located, providing alone 10.5% of the containers used by Chinese foreign trade.
An outbreak of cases in the country
The partial lifting of restrictions in less than a week illustrates the authorities’ concern for economic activity after two years of a “zero Covid” strategy. The entire country is currently experiencing its worst Covid outbreak since the first wave detected at the end of 2019.
President Xi Jinping ordered the continuation of this policy on Thursday evening in order “to stem the spread of the epidemic as quickly as possible”. But he at the same time called for “minimizing the impact of the epidemic on economic and social development”, while Beijing announced for this year its weakest growth target for 30 years (5.5%) .
The zero Covid strategy has made it possible to limit the number of cases of contamination to around 125,000 for two years, if official figures are to be believed. The country officially deplores less than 5,000 deaths and the last death dates back to January 2021. But the Omicron strain jeopardizes the success of this strategy: the country still reported 4,365 infections on Friday the day before, including 105 in Shenzhen.