China's progress on business resumption on May 21

Amid the further containment of COVID-19, China is powering ahead by returning to work and resuming business and production. The following are the latest facts and figures:

— Chinese firms signed service outsourcing contracts worth approximately 374.39 billion yuan (about $54.58 billion) during the first four months, down 6 percent year-on-year, data from the Ministry of Commerce showed on May 20.

The decline was 12 percentage points lower than in the first quarter, showing a recovery in the sector.

— About 99.1 percent of Chinese industrial enterprises with an annual business turnover of at least 20 million yuan had resumed production as of May 18, said Miao Wei, minister of industry and information technology, on May 20. About 95.4 percent of employees in these enterprises had returned to work, he said.

— Chinese authorities on May 20 called for efforts to improve regular prevention and control measures to prevent COVID-19 from rebounding and to also accelerate the resumption of life and work.

— Swiss food giant Nestle on May 20 announced an additional investment of 730 million yuan to strengthen its business operations in China.

Nestle and the administrative committee of the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation to build a plant-based product manufacturing facility and boost the capacity of its local pet food factory.

The production line, with a designed annual capacity of 8,000 metric tons, will be Nestle's first of its kind in Asia.

— The foreign trade of South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region stood at 135.54 billion yuan in the first four months of the year, according to local customs authorities.

The border region's foreign trade in April amounted to 43.02 billion yuan, up 4.3 percent compared with March, said Nanning Customs.