TEDA guides enterprises to resume work and production amid epidemic

(exploringtianjin.com)| Updated : 2020-02-18

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Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area (TEDA) is stepping up efforts to stabilize economic development amid the coronavirus outbreak, guiding enterprises to resume work safely and steadily, said local officials.

“We are striving to help enterprises resume normal production while keeping the novel coronavirus spread risk to a minimum,” said Liang Jun, deputy director of the TEDA’s administrative commission, at a press conference on COVID-19 prevention and control in Tianjin on February 15.

TEDA is home to nearly 70,000 registered market entities with an estimated 500,000 employees, of which over 300,000 are migrant workers. This figure poses a great challenge to epidemic prevention efforts.

Faced with their haunting task, local government has implemented concrete and practical measures at different levels for guiding the resumption of work.

The enterprises in the area are divided into 32 sectors and checked on a daily basis. Apartments in the area are under strict entry management, and residents commute with assistance of local government to avoid risky contact.

In addition, TEDA has also increased material support for the People's Bank of China, the armed police force, Tanggu Customs and other institutions.

In view of the fact that migrant workers account for over 60 percent of the total number of employees, TEDA requires each enterprise to have a sound prevention and control plan in place, with specialized personnel, sufficient medical supplies and adequate knowledge of the novel virus, before they resume production.

According to local government, it is also necessary for local enterprises to ascertain each employee’s health condition, guarantee 14 days of self-imposed quarantine for workers from outside Tianjin, and have strict prevention and control measures ready in densely populated places such as canteens and centralized office areas.

The Volkswagen Automatic Transmission business in TEDA has drawn up an “upgrade matrix” prevention and control plan before returning to work by dividing the risk level into five grades.

Each grade contains very detailed response and safeguard measures including information registration, personnel management, home working, factory disinfection, emergency supplies, and personal protection. In case of an outbreak situation, the enterprise can locate it quickly and take measures to minimize the spread and the fluidity of the virus. 

As of February 14, TEDA had a total of 193 enterprises in operation. Aside from the 126 enterprises which continued operating during the Spring Festival, 67 enterprises have been approved to resume work, of which 42 are foreign-funded enterprises and 57 are enterprises above designated size.

“As of the end of last year, TEDA had three manufacturing enterprises with over 10,000 employees each: Great Wall Motor, Hongfujin and FAW Toyota,” said Liang. “Another 35 enterprises had more than 1,000 employees each. It is a key issue to put the virus prevention and control work in place and prevent the spread of the epidemic caused by centralized dining after these enterprises resume work.”

In view of the above situation, TEDA recently issued the ‘Guidelines on Dining Management of Employees During Epidemic Prevention and Control’ to enterprises, which required them to implement militarized and point-to-point dining management, by designing the dining areas for employees in a layout akin to examination halls.