One of the world’s largest electronics manufacturing hubs near Shanghai is grinding to a halt, aggravating China’s economic worries and exacerbating disruption to global supply chains.
Dozens of producers of crucial electronic components on Wednesday halted production at their factories in Kunshan, a city close to Shanghai. Companies and analysts said the shutdown was unavoidable after lockdown rules initially applied only in Shanghai were extended to Kunshan.
“The situation in Kunshan changed overnight. While factories there could previously operate under so-called ‘static management’, they are now switching to a system like in Shanghai, where individual areas are categorised as closed, restricted or protected depending on when they registered infections for the last time,” said Patrick Chen, head of research at CLSA, a brokerage, in Taipei.