China shuts down world's largest electronic market

Beijing: China's technology hub Shenzhen on Monday ordered the closure of the world's largest electronics wholesale market to contain a recent spike in Coronavirus cases in the southern city, amidst a call by a leading Chinese think tank for a change in the country's 'zero-COVID' policy that it said was causing widespread disruption of business.

Merchants in the Huaqiangbei district, home to the world's largest electronics market, received an official notice that the market will be closed till Thursday to contain the COVID spread.

All tenants are required to work from home during the period and take a nucleic acid test every day, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post quoted one of the district's biggest operators, Huaqiang Electronics World.

Key manufacturing enterprises, including telecommunications equipment giant Huawei Technologies Co, China's top chip maker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp and Apple supplier Foxconn Technology Group, were ordered to follow a closed-loop system for a week that restricted movement of employees, while keeping their production schedules on track.

The new virus cluster has emerged as Hong Kong, which is close to Shenzhen, has reported a big spike in cases. Hong Kong on Monday recorded 8,488 new cases, the second such big spread of the COVID-19 in recent months.

The cases could peak at 20,000 next month, a government pandemic adviser warned on Monday, the report said.

The former British colony has witnessed the worst outbreak a few months ago causing extensive deaths. Hong Kong so far recorded 1,522,460 cases and 9,668 fatalities.

Recently thousands of tourists were stranded for days when China shut down the biggest summer resort Sanya in Hainan cancelling flights and transport services to contain the spread of the Omicron variant, which Beijing continues to find difficult to contain.

Shenzhen China's most modern industrial city itself faced several shutdowns in the recent past to deal with sudden spikes of the virus.

On Sunday China reported 301 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country, of which 161 were in Sichuan Province, the National Health Commission reported on Monday.

Altogether 1,255 local asymptomatic carriers were newly identified on Sunday, including 570 in Tibet and 98 in Hainan, said the commission in its report.