Prez Xi heads to Shanghai to boost business confidence

Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to make his first post-Covid visit to Shanghai - the communist giant’s commercial hub - on Tuesday, days after his high-profile visit to the US where he promised to “tear down barriers” amidst dwindling foreign investments in the country. Xi, 70, who presided over the powerful Politburo meeting of the ruling Communist Party on Monday to review guidelines on policies and measures for promoting high-quality development in the country, will visit Shanghai on Tuesday, his first to the commercial hub, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.

With a population of more than 25 million and contributing nearly four per cent of China’s economic output, Shanghai is home to some of the biggest foreign investments in the country, including Tesla, General Motors, Walt Disney and the 10-year-old Shanghai Free-Trade Zone (FTZ), a testing ground for China’s economic reforms. There is, however, no official announcement of Xi’s visit to the city which was hit hard by a harsh two-month-long COVID-19 lockdown in 2022 during which its population was confined to their dwellings under Xi’s ‘zero COVID’ policy. The lockdown was enforced after the city was hit hard by the Omicron variant of COVID-19 for about eight months.

Since, 2021, the world’s second-largest economy has been hit hard by recurring and prolonged lockdowns of various cities which exasperated China’s economic woes, denting the business confidence including its once-booming property sector.

Xi’s first visit to Shanghai where he was previously the CPC’s boss comes close to his successful visit to the US this month.