Chinese factories are conducting massive productions of ventilators for the global economy as a response to help alleviate the adverse effects of the pandemic. The supply would be focused on Italy and the United States, the top two jurisdictions greatly affected by the pandemic.
Beijing factory Aeonmed Co has been mass-producing ventilators to supply products to Italy and the US. It has been working non-stop since January 20, 2020, in the hopes of alleviating the adverse effects of the pandemic to foreign jurisdictions.
According to the director of Beijing Aeonmed Co. Li Kai, there is a global demand for ventilators produced in China and that the company has thousands of orders waiting for shipment. He also noted that the issue would be how fast the company could provide for the demand of ventilators given the delays incurred due to prior factory shutdowns and travel restrictions.
A survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China showed that one in five companies are expecting delays once they reopen their establishments for business. They also expect the delay to last until the third quarter of this year.
The survey was participated by 199 companies and was conducted last March 13-18, 2020. The businesses had resumed their business operations after China President Xi Jinping announced that the country won against the pandemic and eased travel restrictions. Certain protocols laid down to contain the pandemic were also waived during the announcements. Hence, three out of five from the American Chamber of Commerce in China expects that normal operations can be met by the end of April.
About 45 percent of the companies operating in the technological and service-based industries also expect that there would be moderate to strong additional impacts on the resumption of business especially since the pandemic has grown international. About 14 percent of the respondents, on the other hand, claimed that they have lost 500,000 yuan per day due to the delays incurred during the reopening and restoring of their businesses' full operations.
The respondents also claimed that the delay of the Olympics 2020 event would also cause them financial troubles since the cancellation would come with major financial consequences for the US broadcaster NBC Universal. The network allegedly paid 4.48 billion USD for four Olympic games between 2014 until 2020. As a consequence, it has sold 1.25 billion USD in ads for the Tokyo Olympics. Thus, the delay of the event would cause the company major losses in revenue and overspent marketing efforts.
Its parent company, Comcast, also released its insurance and contracts to protect the entity last month. Despite the business strategic plans, it would still suffer from financial losses caused by ad sales-driven profits. The estimated loss would be 250 million USD for the 2016 Rio Olympics. There was also a chance that the promotion of its upcoming streaming service Peacock would incur losses as well including the stall of shows and movies for its targeted audience supposedly during the event.
Entertainment companies with the American Chamber of Commerce in China also warned that the pandemic would hurt their financial statuses due to job cuts. Canada's second-largest airline claimed that half of its employees have left their posts due to health and security concerns.
WestJet revealed that a total of 6,900 employees have left and that 90 percent of those who have done so voluntarily. Before the pandemic, the company employed 14,000 personnel before the travel restrictions were imposed in China.
