The city of Yiwu in eastern China, which exports everything from Christmas baubles to US presidential campaign merchandise, was put into lockdown on Wednesday, the latest blow to global supply chains from the country’s battle to stamp out the coronavirus.
The lockdown on the city’s 1.9-million people was imposed after the detection of just three asymptomatic infections, reflecting local governments’ moves to impose strict measures earlier in an outbreak to avoid the spiralling crisis that’s enveloped Shanghai.
Yiwu has seen only six confirmed Covid cases since the start of the year and currently has eight asymptomatic people under isolation, according to the local government. Officials have been conducting mass testing to root out silent chains of transmission.
While not as important to the economy as Shanghai or Beijing, Yiwu’s prominence as the hub for global trade in consumer knick-knacks is likely to add to pressure on supply chains already dealing with congestion at Chinese ports and Russia’s war in Ukraine.
China accounts for about 12% of global trade and Covid restrictions have idled factories and warehouses, slowed truck deliveries and exacerbated container logjams.
©2022 Bloomberg L.P.
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