(Yicai Global) March 20 -- Almost all of Shanghai's large vehicle and chip manufacturers, as well as biomedical firms, have resumed operations after Covid-19-caused closures. Tesla's first overseas Gigafactory is even churning out more products than before the outbreak.

Some eight car manufacturers and more than 600 automobile parts makers whose annual core business revenues exceed CNY20 million (USD2.8 million) have gotten back to work, Yicai Global learned. More than 99 percent of semiconductor firms and biomedicine ones have done the same.

"Tesla's production capacity is higher than before the epidemic," an insider at the California-headquartered firm Yicai Global. The industrial park where the Shanghai facility is located had helped the company come up with quarantine facilities for more than 600 employees, as well as 10,000 face masks and some infrared thermometers.

Baolong Automotive has recovered nearly all of its domestic supply chain but the car parts demand is lagging as the virus outbreak is wreaking havoc in the US and Europe, Yin Shufei, chairman's secretary at the Shanghai-based firm, told Yicai Global.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International, Huahong Group, and Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing had managed to maintain stable output during the Chinese New Year holiday period from late January to early February and more than 95 percent of their staffs had returned to their offices as of March 18.

Shanghai has launched CNY2 billion (USD282.4 million) worth of financial support to small and medium-sized enterprises to ease their plight, as well as deferred employers' social security payments, and encouraged commercial property owners to forgive rents. The city has also initiated grants for companies that try to create Covid-19 treatment and prevention ideas. 

Some 81 percent of Shanghai's SMEs have resumed work, while 72 percent of their staffs have done the same. More than half of all of Shanghai's small service sector firms have restored operations by March 16. 

Editor: Zhang Yushuo, Emmi Laine