11 May 2020
By Richard Muir, Deputy Chief Executive Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
A key development since lockdown began has been how quickly business has taken to the use of communication technology.
Using such tech we have been in contact with ex-pat members of our 1783 President’s Network in Shanghai, Milan and New York - in countries hit hardest initially by the pandemic.
One of our partners, the British Chamber of Commerce Shanghai, of course faced the coronavirus crisis first.
Workers there are being encouraged to stagger public transport use so as not to put pressure on infrastructure at peak times. By mid-May gatherings of up to 50 people will be allowed.
Regional governments have lotteries for shopping vouchers to encourage spending and consumers are making up for lost time, buying goods in store. Schools are open again and restaurants are starting to return, but with diners preferring to sit alongside each other rather than face to face. Regular tracing is taking place to prevent a second wave of the virus spreading.
Freedom of movement to work is largely dependent on phone apps. Run on platforms such as Alipay and WeChat, users are given colour codes based on their health status and travel history, and a QR code that can be scanned by authorities.
A panel session we ran with the Chongqing Investment Promotion Centre consisted of business people in various sectors including the entertainment, hospitality, manufacturing and creative industries, telling us commercial life was beginning to return.
Amongst stories of resilience was an entrepreneur who owned a chain of bars holding a St Patrick’s event in late April, producing personalised glasses for regulars to make them feel safer drinking from their own mug.
An education sector member told us a key impact on education is the large-scale transition to online learning. This has necessitated meeting the challenge not only of producing high quality content but also engaging with Chinese students based worldwide.
The response has demonstrated how quickly things can be mobilised in China as people demonstrate a responsiveness, work ethic and a level of conformity in the interest of the greater good.
This is not to suggest online can be a perfect substitute for face to face learning, but resources will now be available to complement traditional provision post COVID-19 and it offers opportunities for students, wherever in the world, to undertake a course in whole or in part by online learning.
We’ve spoken to partners at the British Chamber of Commerce Italy in Milan and Manhattan Chamber of Commerce in New York about mechanisms in their countries aimed at supporting business and protecting jobs.
Northern Italy and the New York area have, of course, been badly hit by COVID-19 and like UK businesses have needed state support.
A Milan contact, who runs an airport ground handling business, praised the Italian Government for utilising 50-year-old state measures for temporary layoff and the provision of 80% salary support akin to the UK’s Job Retention Scheme.
Meanwhile our counterparts in New York at the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce highlighted recent changes to emergency financial aid programmes and funding for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) which dried up two weeks ago because of overwhelming demand on the initial $454bn pot. However at the weekend Congress announced a $175bn second round of the PPP scheme.
Despite the scale of the pandemic and lockdown and the human pain and suffering of the crisis what we’ve found speaking to a cross section of our members based across the globe is reassuring and consistent.
There is a changing landscape and adaptation is ongoing with tech and analytics helping to shape the future. Business is resilient and will survive.
This article first appeared in Glasgow Chamber’s weekly column in the Herald newspaper business pages
