China’s local administration officials announced a shocking financial hub lockdown. Reuters noted that more than 20.000 office-based bankers, traders, and other workers left Shanghai’s Lujiazui district office tower. It won’t sound like a disaster until recovery centers processed more than Rm2.500trn of financial transactions to cover lockdown costs. This would include preparation of sleeping bags, basic supplies, and two-team rotation shifts.
Office towers in Pudong’s Lujiazui Financial City is the place where 20.000 people work in 285 offices. These employees are from collar workers to service staff. The administration bureau of the district added that the towers are also home for some non-financial institutions. In other words, Shanghai is a home for China’s biggest markets especially for stock, bond, foreign exchange, and derivative trading. It is Chinese’s Wall Street.
There are 26 million people residing in the place.
The regulators started a lockdown by dividing the city roughly along Huangpu River for testing. Companies adopt a lot of strategies to keep the business smooth during the lockdown. Amundi BOC Wealth Management for instance allows senior executives, key investment, trading and risk-management staff to work and sleep in their offices.
Haitong Securities is different. The chairman Zhou Jie applied emergency on-site duty shifts at its subsidiaries in Pudong on Sunday night. 150 key staff remain at the office during lockdown. HFT Investment Management, BNP Paribas’s Chinese fund venture, placed 52 workers to work during the lockdown.
In order to ensure system operation and trading, Sinolink Securities urged its staff to go back to headquarters in Pudong before midnight. Some companies adopt shifts. The disaster recovery center covers a week, but it seems like the lockdown would continue. The model could be different, but most of them designed staff in key positions to stay in the office while the rest will work at home.
