Industry Comments on the Impact of the Coronavirus

20 FEB:  Shenzhen Manufacturer:

“Due to the severe coronavirus in China, the government will allow us to resume work and production next week.  For this order, I am afraid the lead time will be put off about March 6th.  I am very sorry for this inconvenience.”

19 FEB:  Anonymous Purchasing Manager Quoting Chinese Supplier:

“Our boss talked with all of our material suppliers in these days, and feedback gives us a very important information.  All the Chinese material cost will be rise in the coming days, very soon.  So if you have any order plan, please arrange it as earliest as best in this month.  We will try and negotiate with supplier that all the orders we got in CNY, ask them to accept and keep the same prices for material, but due to the demand exceeds supply, 100% of the price of raw materials will rise, moreover the short of labor, the price of all lightings will be forced to rise by the beginning of April or mid-March at the latest.”

19 FEB:  Lester Craft, Executive Vice President, Technology Group, Endeavor Business Media, Owner of Strategies in Light

“Trade Show Executive magazine reported that Integrated Systems Europe, held in Amsterdam the same week as SIL, experienced a 26% drop in attendance.  We are looking forward to being back in Santa Clara, where SIL began more than 20 years ago, in 2021, hopefully with the coronavirus well behind us.”  

18 FEB:  Ricky Reese, President, Acuity Brands in a letter to Agents/Customers

“At this time, we anticipate there may be a disruption in our supply chain for certain products and components in the coming weeks as a result of the coronavirus outbreak….We are ramping up our domestic manufacturing operations and supplier inventories to fill anticipated gaps in supply and production.”

18 FEB:  Official Response from L+B to EdisonReport’s question if Hall 10 will be closed

“Hall 10 will not be closed.  Around 2.700 exhibitors will attend the show.  The final exhibitor number will be published shortly.”

17 FEB:  CEO, Anonymous

As a company, (we) pulled out of the show last week due to the virus and have been in touch with other exhibitors who are on the verge of doing the same.”

15 FEB:  Ruby Jadwet, CEO, Truly Green Solutions:

“Some enterprises in big cities have gradually resumed to work since Feb.10th like Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen.  Labor has been coming back to the cities since the first week of Feb, but all of the labor will be quarantined at home or dorms for 14 days for observing.  In some less affected cities, companies can make their decision if the employees can work from home or offices by themselves.  Some companies like ONE, APL and COSCO extended the holiday to Feb.14th.  Maersk asked all of their Chinese staff to work from home until Mar.01st.  Some companies including WWL choose to arrange two shift in order to avoid too many people working in the offices at same time. 

As to those areas which are affected by the virus more seriously like Wenzhou(Zhejiang) and Hubei Province, the Chinese government is still blocking the cities to avoid further infection.  No one can go back to work until government’s further notification.

We had been compiling information from major partners, exporting cities, current terminals, factories and drayage situation for your reference.  From the chart, you can see that the factories recovery is very slow in Zhejiang and Jiangsu province (East China) due to the virus infection.  North China ‘s situation is better.  But the drayage is the major problem for logistics industry now.”

14 FEB:  Stephen Zhou, VP McWong International, Explains their 5-point process:

  1. All staff have a mask on, and the shuttle bus is sprayed and cleaned daily
  2. The temperature is scanned on each person daily
  3. The components warehouse is cleaned on all new sourced components
  4. The production lines and platforms are sprayed and cleaned daily
  5. The finished products are sprayed and cleaned before shipping