The specialists indicated that these sectors will continue without recovering due to the decision of a growing number of regions to cut interprovincial travel, implement restrictions on the entry of visitors and limit the capacities of recreational places such as cinemas, museums, nightclubs and Internet cafes.

They also mentioned the hotel industry and aviation as other major fields affected, since reservations fail to attract a large volume of users despite the reduction in prices even by half.

All those industries had a negative balance during the Qingming Festival holiday in March because it coincided with the spread of the current Covid-19 outbreak.

The wave was caused by the Omicron strain of SARS-CoV-2 and is considered the worst in two years, as it spread throughout most of China and has left more than 500,000 infections and 11 deaths so far.

Shanghai – the financial heart of the country – is the new epicenter of the disease and remains under confinement, although it began to gradually reactivate its main economic sectors under strict epidemiological prevention and control measures.

pgh/llp/jcm/ymr