Ying Yedong (second left), Deputy Party chief of the Yongkang Economic and Development Zone in Jinhua, answers job applicants' questions at a job fair in Zhenxiong county, Zhaotong, Yunnan province. [Photo/zj.zjol.com] 

As of March 1, Yongkang had sent six chartered trains and 173 chartered buses to Zhenxiong and picked up more than 20,000 workers.

Sun Ningwei, vice-president of Xinhai Group in Ningbo, said overseas clients supported the company in resuming work.

"A Dutch client told us that they will place more orders than planned because they believe China still has the most stable suppliers despite the epidemic," said Sun.

Around 93 percent of the company's workers have returned to work and its production capacity has recovered to 88 percent.

Due to a shortage of face masks, at one point the company turned to overseas clients for help, and managed to receive around 100,000 masks from them.

The government also helped with labor shortages, said Sun, explaining that many of their workers were sent back by chartered trains organized by the local government.

A sketch of Sun Ningwei, vice-president of Xinhai Group in Ningbo, calling overseas clients to help with the face mask shortage [Photo/zj.zjol.com]

"Resuming normal operations while effectively controlling the epidemic is a big challenge and puts the social governance of a region to the test. Zhejiang rose to the challenge with its policies and technologies, but problems still exist in labor, markets and funding. So the government needs to continue helping companies," said Lan Jianping, director of the Zhejiang Institute of Industry and Information Technology.