German automaker BMW announced on March 23 that its plants in Shenyang, China, will temporarily shut down from March 24 due to the city’s COVID-19 restrictions, with no date determined for resuming production.
Northeastern China’s Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province with a population of 9.1 million, is home to BMW’s largest production base in the world. The base is a joint venture between BMW and its Chinese partner, Brilliance China Automotive, and has two vehicle production plants, a research and development center, a powertrain plant, and a new vehicle plant that is under construction.
According to BMW Shenyang, the production capacity of its base is currently 760,000 vehicles per year. In 2021, the base manufactured over 700,000 cars, which is 27.8 percent of BMW’s total production.
Despite the city’s strict COVID-19 restrictions, including quarantining international arrivals for 28 days at quarantine centers followed by another 28 days of home quarantine since last October, it is still suffering from outbreaks of COVID-19, with the situation deteriorating quickly in the past days.
On March 23, city authorities announced that all residents would be tested for COVID-19 for the fourth, fifth, and sixth times from March 24 to March 30, and said that “no resident can avoid the tests.”
Meanwhile, no residents are allowed to go to work except the ones who work directly in efforts to curb the outbreak. The regime allows residents who don’t live in locked down neighborhoods to go out to shop for food if the resident can present a negative test result and a green health code on their cellphone app. But all the public transportation has stopped.
The residents living in locked down neighborhoods aren’t allowed to leave home in general, except to take a COVID-19 test organized with the government.
On March 22, the regime ordered the residents not to leave the city, and not shop online, saying that parcels might transmit the virus.
Shenyang city mass tested all residents three times from March 17 to March 23, reporting more and more infections.
Volkswagen
Automaker Volkswagen has also suspended its vehicle production in Changchun, the capital city of Liaoning’s neighboring Jilin Province, due to a new wave of COVID-19.
Volkswagen has a joint venture production base in Changchun with the China FAW (First Automobile Works) Group. The base delivered 2.1 million vehicles in 2020.
On March 14, Chinese state-run media Securities Times reported that the China FAW Group had suspended production across all of its plants in Changchun, including the Volkswagen joint-venture, on March 13. The report said the suspension might last four days.
However, the outbreak keeps on deteriorating, with no sign from the authorities that they will ease restrictions for the plants to reopen for production.
“Operations of all factories and businesses have stopped. An enterprise as big as China FAW Group has been suspended,” Qin added.
China FAW Group had 129,000 employees in November 2021. In Changchun, the group has its own factories, and joint ventures with Volkswagen and Japanese automaker Toyota. In 2020, the group sold 3.7 million vehicles manufactured from its factories and joint venture plants.
Changchun, a hub of over nine million people, reported nearly 2,000 new COVID-19 infections in almost every district and county-level city on March 23. The city regime has asked that all residents stay home.
Changchun officials also said the city has built six makeshift hospitals in the past days, where 9,304 COVID-19 patients can receive treatment at one time. Meanwhile, hospitals in the city have capacity for another 12,513 patients.
