Carmakers in Shanghai are reporting steady growth in deliveries after resuming production following a break of more than three weeks affected by the citywide COVID-19 closed-off management.

Vice Mayor Zhang Wei told reporters on Friday that on April 19, the Shanghai-based SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicle Company, China's largest automaker, completed 200 deliveries, and Tesla, another big producer, 600.

But production challenges remain because of parts supply bottlenecks and difficulties in securing the return of workers, even as the city has reported a decline in virus cases in recent days. 

On Thursday, Shanghai registered 1,931 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases and 15,698 asymptomatic cases.

Production capacity cut in half

Among the first batch of automakers approved for resumption, most enterprises could only run on a single-shift work rotation, well below full production capacity. 

"Less than 40 percent of our employees are eligible to work back in factories as their local residential complex would not 'release' them," an auto parts enterprise leader told China News Service on Friday.

The leader said that all residents within an apartment building where workers live have to test negative for seven consecutive days in order for them to return to work.

Timely shipment of auto parts is also crucial, with Chen Peifeng, director of the SAIC's assembly plant, saying further progress will depend on when suppliers themselves can resume production. 

Tesla's Shanghai factory said on Tuesday that it would need three to four days to return to full capacity, 

Collaborative measures in place

Automobile enterprises generally have a long industrial chain, requiring supply collaboration at every step of the process. Provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region have banded together to support Shanghai's automobile enterprise production resumption. 

Six freight logistics centers for crucial goods and materials have been set up in the YRD region's Jiangsu Province, Zhejiang Province and Shanghai, with four of them already up and running.

In addition, the city has pledged to issue "digital passes" for enterprise employees to speed up their return to work.

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Shanghai's manufacturing firms resume production