Authorities in Jinhua, Zhejiang province have rolled out a number of measures to help local companies overcome difficulties caused by the COVID-19 epidemic such as order cancelations and shortages of funds and raw materials.

A local wallpaper company was recently forced to suspend production due to foreign clients canceling orders, and turned to the local taxation department for help. The department found a local company in need of wallpapers using big data and facilitated cooperation between the two companies.

A shipment of logs imported from Australia recently arrived in Jinhua thanks to a green channel set up by Jinhua Customs to facilitate the clearance of urgently-needed materials.

To help alleviate the financing difficulties facing companies, the local commerce department has raised the compensation ceiling for foreign trade companies which have had a single buyer break their contract. The move has retrieved losses of 54.56 million yuan ($7.74 million) for local companies. The Jinhua Trade Promotion Council has issued 50 documents for 41 local companies to certify that they have experienced difficulties in delivering goods and fulfilling their contracts on time. The contracts were worth more than 88 million yuan.

Jinhua authorities also encouraged companies to engage in online trade. Yiwu, a county-level city in Jinhua, has established an online global trade platform for supplies used in epidemic control, and saw deals worth 8.67 million yuan signed on the platform's opening day.

As of the end of March, Jinhua had exported 1,206 orders of goods worth $50.44 million.

Statistics also show that 476 of the city's major foreign trade companies, which have an annual export value of more than $10 million, have resumed operations, and 82 percent of the city's orders were fulfilled in the first quarter of the year.