The first shut down factories of foreign concerns in China will open again today. The New Year’s holiday that was extended by the government due to the outbreak of the coronavirus has officially ended.
The mega-factory of Tesla in Shanghai and the companies of Philips Healthcare, with eight thousand employees, are among the lucky ones. They are allowed to resume production today to their great relief.
Other groups must be patient for at least a week, including Toyota and Foxconn, the largest iPhone factory in the world in Shenzhen. They are not yet receiving permission from the authorities.
With the restart, a part of the growing turmoil at the headquarters of international companies comes to an end.
Every extra day on which production stops in Chinese locations brings concerns, from tech giants such as Apple to automakers such as Volkswagen, Fiat Chrysler and Hyundai, into more trouble. Not that that will immediately end when the doors open again – the shortage of products and parts is not quickly made up – but the worst suffering has been suffered.
It is still too early to say how much pain this has caused us. Let’s start again first “, says Steve Klink from Philips Healthcare.