Shenzhen returns to normal bustling life

An aerial view of Minzhi Subdistrict, Longhua District. Sun Yuchen

Shenzhen returned to its normal bustling life yesterday after the city lifted one-week COVID restrictions, with heavy traffic on trunk roads, steady streams of people on Metro trains, in railway stations, coming in and out of business venues and office buildings, and long queues for nucleic acid tests.

The morning buses and Metro trains revived and were crowded again with commuters. Shenzhen North Station also saw a sea of faces during the morning rush hour.

The Metro experienced such a heavy ridership during the morning rush hour that the operator decided to add 20 temporary trains on Lines 1, 2, 3 and 5 between 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.

Starting from today, Metro services will resume normal capacity, with some half-way terminating trains to be added on all lines, except Line 20, according to the operator.

An eatery owner surnamed Lai, who complained its plight due to the lockdown in the government’s official WeChat account and received help from the government and fellow residents, got up early yesterday to clean the eatery and prepare to be back in business.

“I have received help from many people and tried to register to become a volunteer for a few days but failed. Now, I want to serve the customers with a cleaner dining environment and start business tomorrow,” Lai said.

At 9:30 a.m., newlyweds Zhu Mingdi and LiuXiaogang received their marriage registration certificates from Futian marriage registry office.

“We chose this day as the season blooms to commemorate the hard times we had gone through together,” the couple said. They had been together since their university days in 2014.

To guarantee the resumption of normal life, authorities are rolling out measures to ensure the safety and stability of industrial and supply chains, and orderly life and work for locals.

Foxconn, the biggest assembler of iPhones, said its factories in Shenzhen returned to full capacity yesterday, according to Sina.com.

At Kexing Science and Technology Park in Nanshan District, which houses around 4,000 enterprises, 12,000 young tech workers returned to work yesterday. According to Chen Qinglan, vice manager of the park, 70% of employees worked from home last week and now eateries in the park were crowded again with people queueing for breakfast.

“Our company has over 1,000 employees, with 100% returning to work today,” Sun Yu, quality control manager of Yeahka Science and Technology Center, said in an interview yesterday.

At Huntkey Group in Banxuegang Science and Technology City in Longgang District, a manufacturer of AC adapters for enterprises like DJI and Xiaomi, work resumed at 8 a.m. Liu Maoqi, president of the company, said that they have recently increased the production capacity from 65% to 80%. It will suffer a 380,000-yuan (US$59,785 ) loss if its production lines halt for one hour. “We hope to get back what we have lost in past seven days,” Liu said.

The city government provided targeted, professional and considerate support to enterprises when coordinating prevention and control work with economic development, said Bai Xuefeng with Shenzhen Sunwoda Electronic Co. Ltd.

“With such strong support, we have full confidence in the stability of the industrial and supply chains,” Bai said.