Amcham members in a new survey expressed more pessimism about fallout from COVID-19 even as China… [+]
Disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to escalate among American and multinational companies in China even as life there slowly recovers from the worst of the outbreak, according to a new survey released by the Beijing-headquartered American Chamber of China.
Roughly half of the surveyed members say they are experiencing significant revenue declines, compared with 28% in a survey last month. Meanwhile, 39% of companies report a drop in demand for their products, up six percentage points from last month. Almost 120 companies responded to the survey, Amcham said. More than 3,000 have died in China from COVID-19; lockdowns have eased though draconian travel restrictions and testing procedures for international arrivals remain.
As the fallout from the epidemic has become clearer since last month, more companies are expressing a pessimistic outlook, Amcham said. Some 57% of respondents said they expect China in 2020 revenues to decrease if business cannot return to normal before April 30 – up from 48% the month before – while 60% (up 10 percentage points month-on-month) said 2020 revenues will decline anywhere between 10% and 50% or more if business cannot return to normal before August 30.
“Our member companies are still wrestling with challenges brought by the epidemic, and there’s now concern about the global impact,” said AmCham China Chairman Greg Gilligan in a statement.
“Since our last survey, this has now become a worldwide pandemic and close to half of the companies said the global spread of the virus would have a moderate-to-strong impact on their China operations. But the views aren’t all grim: nearly a quarter of our companies expect a return to normal business operations by the end of April, while 22% have already resumed normal operations, and 40% report they will maintain previously planned investment levels, up significantly from last month’s survey.”
Amcham’s survey was conducted March 14-18.
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