The online clearinghouse joint venture of U.S. credit card firm Mastercard has gained regulatory approval, another sign of China further opening its financial markets. In a statement posted on its website, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), the country’s central bank, announced that it, together with the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), has approved an application by Mastercard NUCC Information Technology (Beijing) Co to operate a bankcard clearing house in China. Plans to set up the joint venture (JV) between Mastercard and Chinese online payment clearing house NetsUnion Clearing Corp (NUCC) were announced last year. Mastercard owns 51% of the JV.

The opening of the bankcard market is a vital component of the country’s financial deregulation, making domestic payment and clearing services more open and internationalized. The JV is required to finish preparatory work within one year and file with the central bank to begin operations. “We are delighted and encouraged by this latest decision from the PBOC,” Ajay Banga, President and CEO of Mastercard, said in a statement, noting that China is a vital market for the company. The Mastercard announcement came after the PBOC’s approval in late 2018 of a JV between American Express Co, one of Mastercard’s rivals, and Chinese fintech firm Zhejiang Lianlian Group to set up a bankcard network.

The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce (FCCC) has compiled a Covid-19 Resources Guide. The novel coronavirus has been officially renamed Covid-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO). The latest version can be downloaded on the FCCC’s website.

The latest statistics of cases and deaths can be consulted on Johns Hopkins University’s CSSE page: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html

China is currently fighting the novel coronavirus. Due to the outbreak, many of our Chinese partners and friends cannot join our reception because of travel bans. After deep consideration with our board members, we found that the timing is not appropriate to celebrate our Chinese New Year Reception on February 12. Out of deep respect, our board members have decided they would like to postpone the new year reception and invite you and all our Chinese friends at the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce, which will take place in May 2020 in Brussels.

Due to the fast spreading of the Covid-19 (novel coronavirus) epidemic, doctors in China are lacking medical supplies, such as protective gowns, gloves, goggles and face masks. To provide the necessary security, these items need to be replaced several times a day. Factories producing face masks have been built in record time. Still, in the current circumstances, supplies are far from sufficient.

The Flanders-China Chamber of Commerce (FCCC) is therefore calling on its members and the public to donate needed medical supplies.

Those who are willing to donate to help the Chinese people fight the epidemic, please send an e-mail to:
info@flanders-china.be Thank you!

This week is crucial in China’s fight against the Covid-19 virus as many Chinese return to work after an extended Chinese New Year holiday. There is a slight reduction in the daily increase of cases, but it is still not sure that the peak of the epidemic has been reached. The number of new confirmed cases reported daily in provinces outside Hubei dropped for the sixth consecutive day on Sunday, February 9, indicating that preventative measures and quarantines were having some effect. Worldwide, there are now 45,188 cases, most of them (more than 33,000) in China’s Hubei province. The death toll in China is 1,016, which is more than the worldwide number of deaths in the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic.

The virus has been officially renamed Covid-19 by the World Health Organization (WHO). In the Chinese English-language press, the virus is now called “novel coronavirus pneumonia” (NCP), but they might start using the official name soon.

Work resumed partially on February 10 but there were still less passengers on public transport in the big cities as many migrant workers have not yet returned from their hometowns. Factories and offices are taking strict measures to prevent infections. Passengers taking the subway are obliged to put on a face mask. Beijing subway reported that there were still only 50% of the number of passengers compared to a normal working day.

International transport has been further affected as an increasing number of airlines reduce or cancel flights to and from China. Some countries, including the U.S., Australia and Italy, also refuse entry to foreigners who have been in China in the past 14 days. The British government advised its citizens to leave China “if they can”. The Chinese government expressed its dissatisfaction with those measures. It emphasized that they were taken against the recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO). Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying said: “We hope relevant countries will bear in mind overall relations and people’s interests and resume normal operation of flights to guarantee normal people-to-people exchanges and cooperation”. The current medical consensus, promoted by the WHO is that travel bans, at best slow an epidemic by a very short time and make no difference to the outcome.

All foreign pilots working for China Southern Airlines, Hainan Airlines, and a host of smaller mainland Chinese carriers have been placed on indefinite unpaid leave. With the coronavirus crisis forcing airlines to slash flights, several hundred foreign pilots have seemingly become surplus overnight. They were told they could get back to work “when the situation gets better”. For the January 23-February 3 period, China Southern eliminated more than 7,900 flights, Xiamen Air scrapped 3,287, while Hainan Airlines coped with 2,967 fewer services within the mainland. Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragon have canceled more than half their flights in February and March. The airlines together will cut 783 flights per week in February and 835 per week in March, reducing their services by 52% and 57% respectively.

In Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, the fight against the virus has been stepped up with the screening of nearly the total population of the city for signs of disease. Confirmed patients are being treated in dedicated hospitals such as two newly built hospitals. Suspected patients and persons showing symptoms of the disease or having been into contact with confirmed patients are being put into quarantine in warehouses, conference centers, gymnasiums and schools turned into makeshift hospitals. The Global Times reports that since January 24, Wuhan airport has received 124 flights carrying 17,000 medics and 115 flights of materials weighing 2,205 tons. In cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, measures are being taken to partially close off communities and tighten entry restrictions, such as refusing entry to visitors. The country’s railways delivered 1.27 million passenger trips last Saturday, a plunge of 85.4% year-on-year, according to the China State Railway Group Co. The number was estimated to be 2 million on Sunday, down 82.2%. Of the 10 million people that left Beijing for the Spring Festival holidays, 8 million have not returned.

Several Chinese and foreign institutes and companies are working on vaccines and medicines. A team headed by Prof. Peter Hotez at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, is cooperating with researchers from Fudan University in Shanghai. Hotez’s team has already developed and manufactured a vaccine for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). A vaccine against coronavirus, developed by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Medical School of Shanghai Tongji University and Shanghai-based biotechnology company Stemirna Therapeutics, has already been tested on mice but trials on humans will only commence in April. U.S.-based GeoVax Labs and Inovio Pharmaceuticals and China-based BravoVax and Adcaccine Biopharmaceuticals are also working on vaccines. The China Association for Vaccines said that as of February 6, 17 Chinese institutions and companies were developing vaccines. Chinese researchers said the pangolin, an endangered mammal illegally trafficked for its scales and meat, is a potential intermediate host between bats and humans for the coronavirus. The pangolin is considered the most trafficked animal in the world and an estimated one million were smuggled from 2000-2013.

Social media in China erupted after doctor Li Wenliang died on February 7 in a Wuhan hospital. He was one of the first to sound the alarm about the novel coronavirus capability to spread from human to human, but was reprimanded by the local public security bureau for “spreading lies”. He was confirmed to be infected by the virus on February 1 and at 34-years-old became one of the youngest patients to die. To calm public anger, the National Supervision Commission sent a team to Wuhan to examine the circumstances of the case.

In Hong Kong, Chief Executive Carrie Lam appealed to the people to stay at home as much as possible. The Hong Kong government had earlier said it would quarantine all people – including Hong Kong residents – arriving from mainland China for 14 days. The authorities were searching for vacant sites to build quarantine centers. When the decision was taken to quarantine all visitors crossing the border from China there were only three quarantine centers in operation, providing 90 units in total. Trucks drivers would probably be exempted from quarantine to guarantee the food supply. At Yokohama harbor in Japan, 135 of the 3,700 passengers aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship have been tested positive for the coronavirus.

Companies around the world are beginning to feel the repercussions of the outbreak. Hyundai has suspended operations at its giant Ulsan complex in South Korea, the most productive car factory in the world, due to a lack of parts from China. Fiat Chrysler CEO Mike Manley also told the Financial Times his firm could be forced to halt one of its European factories over supply shortages. Macao decided to close its casino’s for two weeks. Macao, the only place in China where casino gambling is legal, derives a significant portion of its revenue from gamblers from the mainland, but Chief Executive Ho Iat Seng said the territory could afford to bear the economic losses. The China Import and Export Fair, better known as the Canton Fair, has decided to suspend all exhibits, saying it is for epidemic prevention and control. The Bureau of Commerce of Guangzhou suspended other large-scale exhibitions, leading to the delay of at least nine such events that were originally scheduled in February. SMEs outside China are also suffering as Chinese suppliers close down for an extended period. Retailers selling Chinese products receive less customers and many Chinatowns in the world are deserted. As larger firms like Apple and Dell also suffer the effects of the outbreak, smaller enterprises that sell them products and services also bear the consequences.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that regarding the worldwide spread of the virus, “we may only be seeing the tip of the iceberg” as there have been some concerning instances of onward spread from people with no travel history to China.

This overview is based on reports by the China Daily, Shanghai Daily, Global Times, South China Morning Post and The Guardian.