June 7, 2022: -China is recovering from the recent Covid shock. In a huge step toward normality, the capital city of Beijing gave permission to the restaurants in most districts to start in-store dining on Monday, after a hiatus of about a month. Many businesses could restart in-person operations.

The southeastern metropolis of Shanghai pressed on with a reopening plan that kicked off in the previous week, which was under lockdown for the last two months.

 According to travel booking site Trip.com, residents flocked to camping sites and local parks in the long weekend holiday that started on Friday.

According to official data, after the increase of omicron cases across the country since March, the nationwide daily Covid case count has decreased to below 50.

Under the “dynamic zero-Covid policy” mandate of China, local authorities have used strict travel bans and stay-home orders to control the virus. Those restrictions disrupted supply chains and other businesses, sending retail sales and industrial production decreasing in April.

“Our high-frequency trackers suggest that barring one more severe Covid resurgence and related lockdowns, mobility, construction and ports operation could recover to pre-lockdown levels in around one month,” Goldman Sachs and team said on Saturday.

Although, businesses in the service sector that include close human contact would find it challenging to “achieve a full recovery any time soon,” the report said.

“The unsynchronized lockdowns and reopenings across major cities suggest that ongoing post-lockdown growth recovery should be less steep than the V-shaped one in spring 2020,” the report further said.

During a press conference the previous week, People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor Pan Gongsheng gave little sign of additional large-scale support for the sector. He mentioned how the pandemic restricted real estate construction and sales. But he stressed Beijing’s policy of limiting speculation in the industry and described authorities’ most delinquent moves to relax some curbs on real estate loans.