Governments at all levels play their part to help to minimize the risk of infection

 

Gyalpo, a resident of the Togde area in Chengguan district of Lhasa, capital city of the Tibet autonomous region, was very concerned when the courier delivery business can return to normal as the Singles Day shopping festival, which falls on Nov 11 every year, loomed.

 

Since the COVID-19 outbreak in early August, Lhasa, as well as other regions in Tibet, has been severely affected. The courier delivery business has ground to a halt for several months.

 

Gyalpo received a phone call on Nov 5 from a nearby outlet of SF Delivery, informing him to take his parcel that had been delayed for several weeks.

 

Wearing a mask and having his body temperature checked, he was allowed into the outlet. SF staff members told him that the outlet had resumed operations on Nov 4.

 

"I was satisfied to take the parcel, which contained housecleaning detergents and other daily goods, one day after their resumption of work," Gyalpo said. Staff members at SF Delivery's Lhasa branch said all its 15 outlets in the city resumed operations on Nov 4.

 

They said that SF was busy handling deliveries that had been delayed for weeks or even months and this would be completed in several days. They hope they could have enough manpower, transportation and storage facilities for the Singles Day shopping festival.

 

The postal administration of Lhasa, which is the regulator for the postal service and delivery industry, said EMS, the express mail service unit of State-owned China Post, was among the couriers with the fastest business recovery.

 

Since resuming operations on Nov 4, EMS had seen all of its 80-plus outlets in Lhasa offering services to customers in two days.

 

Private couriers like ZTO, Danniao, J&T, YT Express, STO, Yunda, JD Delivery and Deppon all resumed operations in early November, the postal administration said.

 

To ensure they can meet the urgent demands of customers, the administration advised couriers to prioritize such deliveries as medicines, milk powder for infants and supplies for emergency response.

 

It also required these enterprises to minimize the risk of infection during the busy period serving the Singles Day shopping festival, which can last 10 days or even two weeks.

 

The pandemic control and prevention measures proposed by the administration include frequently disinfecting business outlets and parcel-handling venues, requiring customers to wear masks and gloves when picking up their parcels and disinfecting the outer package before the parcels are taken into residences.

 

The city of Shigatse saw its couriers' services resume on Oct 14.

 

Companies like SF Delivery, JD Delivery, Yunda, Deppon and EMS resumed their operations gradually. The recovery of operations by couriers was a positive sign that most of Tibet's business activities have returned to normal.

 

In the county of Lhundrub in Lhasa, for instance, more than 90 percent of its businesses, including supermarkets, department stores, drugstores, restaurants, manufacturers and farms, had reported normal operations by Nov 20.

 

"The resumption of business is the result of painstaking and effective efforts in pandemic control and prevention," said Zhen Xiuzhen, a garment store operator in the county seat of Lhundrub. "Since we restarted business in early November, we have seen steady increases in customer numbers and revenue. To ensure a safe environment, we constantly remind customers to wear masks and have their body temperature and health code checked."

 

The business owner also said she has masks put in prominent places, ready to be offered free to those in need.

 

Officials said Lhundrub began to allow businesses to resume operations on Sept 5, according to the conditions of various areas and different industries. By Nov 20, more than 600 business entities in the county had seen the normalization of their operations.

 

In the city of Nagchu, business operations began to resume in September. The lives of people have gone back to normal.

 

A farming and herding cooperative in Nyiur township in the city's Lhari county received its first big order in early October since its business resumed in September — 10 metric tons of zampa, or roasted highland barley flour, a staple food in regions of Tibet's ethnic population.

 

The order was placed by the Nyiur township government for a package of subsidies offered to pandemic-affected residents. Based on the township's policy, every household was eligible to receive 2.5 kilograms of zampa and 2.5 kilos of sugar for free. The cooperative took 11 days to complete the production and delivered the produce to the township government.

 

Pema Dundrup, head of the cooperative, said the cooperative is also receiving new orders from other clients, with the latest being a sales deal of rapeseeds.

 

"We had a good harvest of rapeseeds this year," said Tashi Phuntso, a farmer in Nyiur township. "But sales of the produce were a big concern in a time of the pandemic outbreak."

 

He said his worry, as well as that of all his fellow villagers, was relieved by the purchase deal concluded by the cooperative.

 

Pema Dundrup said the cooperative has its own means of storage and transportation and has a network of sales reaching many cooking oil producers in and outside the autonomous region.

 

"Thanks to the natural conditions unique to the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, like sufficient sunshine and big temperature difference between day and night, rapeseeds growing in the region are usually of high quality and are well received throughout the country," Tashi Phuntso said. "It's a win-win deal, as it brings handsome profits to both the cooperative and farmers, especially at this hard time of the pandemic."

 

Governments at all levels in Tibet have also played their part to help businesses resume operations.

 

"We are closely tracking the dynamics of the pandemic in every area in our district and keeping in touch with the local disease control and prevention organization," said Wu Junwen, an official at the market regulation administration in Lhasa's Chengguan district. "If the level of pandemic response is lowered, we would in a timely manner inform business owners to submit an application for reopening."

 

He said the permission will usually be granted in one day. Upon approval, officials from the market regulation administration and disease control and prevention center would visit the business owner immediately, helping him or her with the implementation of pandemic prevention measures.

 

"We would usually send them disinfectants and brochures on disease control precautions, and help them install temperature checking devices," Wu said.

 

To minimize the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the market entities, the Tibet Market Regulation Administration released a guideline consisting of 13 measures to support the resumption of business activities in late November.

 

The measures included offering smooth channels for business registrations and approvals; streamlining administrative procedures, strengthening government services and enhancing market regulation.

 

The regional administration required market regulatory bodies at various levels to open online business registration and approval platforms for enterprises, making it possible for all the procedures to be handled online.

 

The guideline suggested market regulators carry out more flexible law enforcement measures toward market entities and punishment be imposed in a cautious way. It said, for instance, market entities with minor faults caused by the pandemic, like sales of expired goods, should be asked to rectify instead of being fined.

 

It also encouraged enterprises to make better use of e-commerce and other online platforms to deliver their products to consumers.

 

The administration said equal emphasis should be given to protecting consumers' rights.

 

In addition, the government of Tibet autonomous region issued 29 preferential measures in late October to support business resumption and help to bring life to normal.

 

The measures included offering financial assistance to residents in difficulties, especially the low-income families, the unemployed, COVID-19 patients and patients of other severe diseases. An eligible applicant could be granted a subsidy up to 3,000 yuan ($429.6).

 

The government also promised to grant subsidies to businesses in the fields of retail sales, catering and tourism in the forms of consumption coupons and direct subsidies.

 

The regional government said that it has set aside a total of 2.2 billion yuan to help businesses in difficulty.

 

Wang Junzheng, secretary of the Tibet Committee of the Communist Party of China, paid visits to various locales in Lhasa on Nov 10 to see how the business resumption was proceeding.

 

During the visits, Wang said equal emphasis should be given to both pandemic control and business recovery in a bid to ensure safe development and the well-being of people.

 

He required governments at all levels to implement effective measures to help businesses and residents in difficulty, stabilizing market operations and boosting economic growth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Farmers in Gyalze county, Shigatse use machines to harvest highland barley on Sept 19, when the pandemic was basically under control in the region. JIGME DORJE/XINHUA


By YUAN SHENGGAO