Qingdao hosts online meeting to support enterprises amid epidemic

The eastern coastal city of Qingdao, Shandong province, hosted an online meeting on March 16 to promote policies and measures supporting enterprise development amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The meeting was live-streamed via a dozen media outlets and attracted an audience of more than 3.3 million, the vast majority of whom were local entrepreneurs and businessmen.

Wang Qingxian, Party secretary of Qingdao, gave a keynote speech. Leaders of related government departments answered questions raised by audience members.

In his speech, Wang said that Qingdao has rolled out timely measures and policies for production recovery, and stabilized the expectations of enterprises and financial institutions.

Wang said that the epidemic has struck some industries, but has also created new opportunities for healthcare, online services including shopping, entertainment and education and some other industries.

Wang said that a crisis is always an opportunity for innovators. As long as we seize the opportunity we can generate new momentum for economic growth.