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Global Health Econ Sustain An analysis of national economic resilience

Figure 1. The progression of COVID-19 epidemic and the corresponding economic policies in China
Notes: The progression of COVID-19 epidemic is partly based on the work of Jin et al. (2022). Figure 1 was created with PowerPoint.

than 1 year. Third, the government spending on medical as the film industry delay the resumption of work. Last,
and public health was greatly increased, especially on the the central government adopted “international trade
public health emergency treatment, government hospitals, diplomacy” to urge countries that have taken restrictive
and major public health service projects (Jin et al., 2022). measures on China’s goods trade (due to the epidemic) to
Last, the government directly provided subsidies and tax cancel or adjust these import restrictive measures.
deductions to individuals and enterprises.
3.4. Stable stage
There are two main aspects of monetary policy in this
period. First, the central bank of China increased the On April 8, 2020, the number of newly confirmed cases stayed
amount of currency in circulation. Fox example, the central zero for 20 days, and Wuhan had finally been lifted from the
bank launched a 1.2 trillion Yuan open-market operation lockdown, representing a milestone of successful epidemic
on February 3, 2020, to release more currency. Second, control in China. In this stage, small-scale outbreaks
the central bank increased financial support for key areas continued to turn up in some regions, but fortunately,
such as small and microenterprises, private enterprises and small-scale epidemics could be quickly controlled within
manufacturing enterprises, and reduced comprehensive the short term and would not develop into large-scale ones
financing costs for these enterprises by increasing credit across regions (Jin et al., 2022). Although the epidemic was
loans. effectively controlled, it also caused a huge negative impact
on China’s economy, reducing the GDP in the first quarter
3.3. Resolution stage of 2020 by more than 3%. It should be noted that those
In this stage, the epidemic was gradually controlled and small and microenterprises were most seriously impacted
the number of new cases decreased day by day due to the by the epidemic. Thus, the economic policy at this stage still
strict control and closure policies imposed. Hence, the maintained the features of the previous two stages, that is,
government not only gradually relaxed the strict closure supporting small and microenterprises. In June 2020, the
measures to help enterprises resume production activities State Council proposed to allow small and microenterprises
but also stimulated exports through active foreign trade to postpone the deadline for loan repayment. In addition,
policies, on the basis of continuing to adopt easy monetary the Ministry of Finance issued 1 trillion Yuan of special
policy and active fiscal policy. First, the government anti-epidemic treasury bonds to stabilize employment and
supported enterprises to resume production by reducing improve people’s livelihood.
tax burden and increasing loan interest discount. For 4. The measurement framework of national
example, the State Council agreed to reduce or exempt economic resilience
the social insurance premiums of enterprises on February
24, 2020; the Ministry of Finance proposed to provide Economic resilience is the ability of a country (or region)
government financing guarantee and interest rate subsidy to resist external shocks and quickly recover to its original
for small and microenterprises. Second, local governments development path from economic shocks (Aiginger, 2009;
help enterprises resume production by industry and in Martin, 2012; Bristow & Healy, 2020; Soufi et al., 2022).
order. For example, manufacturing enterprises resume Economic resilience is not only the ability of macroeconomy
production first, and some entertainment industries such to resist shocks and recover rapidly but also the ability to

Volume 2 Issue 2 (2024) 4 https://doi.org/10.36922/ghes.1842