Japanese company in Hunan upbeat about China market

Despite the development strain brought by the coronavirus, the president of Changsha Pacific Hanya Auto Parts Company in central China's Hunan Province is confident about a rebounding demand and the Chinese market at large. "I believe Hunan's automobile industry will continue to grow because the province has a large development space and has attracted many leading automakers already," said Hidenori Yoshida, the president.

The company was established in Changsha, the provincial capital in September of 2011. It is mainly engaged in the production and sales of automobile body parts, chassis parts and resin products.

Yoshida said the company received appropriate advice and assistance from the local government in virus prevention and control as early as February.

"I'm grateful for the Hunan government for their guidance and help. The company has been running faultlessly during the epidemic," he said.

The provincial commerce department sent a letter to express gratitude and respect to the company for the contributions to Hunan's development, and cooperation and donations during the COVID-19 outbreak.

In the letter, Xu Xiangping, head of the department, said the government will continue to provide good business environment and services, as well as to offer as much help as possible in purchasing anti-virus materials.

Shinya Ogawa, CEO and president of Pacific Industrial Company in Japan, the parent company, replied a week later, saying that Xu's letter injected vitality into the company that is battling against a severe business slack due to the outbreak.

Yoshida said Hunan has introduced favorable policies to promote automobile consumption, which he believes will have a certain effect on the resumption of production and sales.

The Changsha company has resumed partial production in mid-March and entered full operation since early April.

The provincial department said since the outbreak, Hunan has focused on solving the most urgent and difficult problem for foreign-invested enterprises, helping ease the shortage of epidemic prevention materials for them and establishing a government-bank-enterprise docking mechanism to meet their financing needs.

So far Hunan has provided 29.16 billion yuan (4.12 billion U.S. dollars) of financing loans to 815 foreign-funded and foreign trade enterprises with financing needs.