now the government says can't pay his bills. welcome to the show. i'm super busy. how hard is coven 19 hitting? the chinese economy. and trade figures on wednesday are shedding more light on that question. imports in march fell slightly from the previous year, a mid week domestic demand. the 1st dipping months. exports, however, rose by 16 percent. but that's not the full picture. shanghai in the countries financial hub and it's biggest port and it's been under strict locked down for several weeks now. data that's not fully captured in the latest figures. access in shanghai severely restricted. there of even been shortages of food and other basic necessities of the knock on effects on supply chains around the world will likely hit soon. supply chain data trackers say that volume of goods shipped by sea from shanghai dropped by 26 percent between march 12th and april 4th. and that is before the most severe phase of a lockdown kicked in. now for one of the chinese economy,

i'm joined here in studio by my colleague arthur sullivan. arthur, let's start with the new figures. these export numbers seem to suggest that things are looking relatively good to what extent is actually the full extent of what's going on with the chinese economy. but you said it yourself, steven. it's an incomplete picture. so yes, the export figures are quite strong, although slightly a slight drop from the combined figures of john you're in february. but the really interesting figure here is the import figure. so we see an actual like dip compared to this time last year, no point one percent. and what part of that is an existing problem? there has been a slowing of domestic growth in china. partly contributed to by the fact that the chinese government is significantly trying to read read and it's read a stay at debt problem. we also do see a significant impact from, from the war and ukraine and also of course, the shanghai or disruption. so in terms of warren, you can, we can see if we look at, if we drill into those important figures, we see a significant drop in commodities, gas, coal, and those kind of things fall in terms of imports. that's due at rising prices, of course, because of the war and other factors. but also we do see this growing issue around goods getting into china because of this disruption that we're seeing from the

major lockdown. shanghai is speaking of that locked down. this is one of the world's largest ports. i mean, what kind of disruption are we going to see coming out from this into the wider world? right, so i mean, truck, china is actually the world's biggest by far the busiest point in the world. so the huge amount of commerce goes through there, that export figure that we touched on earlier. it was that those cover some of the period in which it's been in lockdown. but we can certainly expect to see in april that there's going to be much more disruption in terms of exports and imports, particularly the exports. because if you look at what we are seeing going out to shanghai, well that the port officials and those running shanghai port say things running as normal. there's a lot of real time trade trackers the follow, you know, the phrase, the follow containers lou just, it was, this is just very much of the way. so for example, the chamber of commerce which, you know, for, for european companies in beijing and china, they say that, you know, volume at the, at the portion highs down by around 40 percent. their companies on the ground there . and then you touched on the, on the figure there for that, you know, trade track of that says value merchandise down by 26 percent. that's

a huge amount. and you know, the problem in shanghai is basically the factories are closed. warehouses are close . many to does a huge shortage of truck drivers because they're not available because quarantine or the restrictions or their cities don't necessarily want that truck drivers from shanghai in because of the, you know, the possibility of infection. so this strict, strict lockdown means that basically the words busiest port and one of the major economic centers, the word is on, on ice essentially. we only have about 30 seconds. want to ask you briefly, how much pressure does this put on beijing to change the strict lockdown policy for the city's law. so we're seeing a lot of, you know, protest within shanghai, not public protests, of course, but on social media, people complaining, but strict it is. in some cases, children who are infected aren't able to see their, their fbi with their families while they're recovering, shortage food, things like this. and to a large extent, the chinese communist party. and she's been paying a stake, the reputation on this euro code policy, not letting infection spread. and of course, she's been paying as of him for his starts her term later this year. who knows? maybe if this situation escalates more pressure will come on there. all right, a situation is changing by the day there in shanghai and in china, arthur sullivan,

w business. thank you very much. which is how fraught is the situation in shanghai itself? a city of 25000000 people under locked down with limited access to groceries and no clear into the measures in sight or correspond fabi encroachment sent us this report. for weeks, the streets of shanghai have been empty. supermarkets, shot delivery workers that wouldn't normally be leaving their way through the city are nowhere to be seen. social media is put up, cries for help, and complaints about a lack of food. some videos, show unrest, neighborhoods where people are desperate to find food. and in one unverified video, people even seen looting a supermarket authorities as grambling to deliver supplies. but they are huge probably know if i'm in for delivering vegetables, some of getting their food early, some are getting late, it has a big impact on people's lives. have some reports say the biggest hurdle and the

delivery of goods is at the last mile. many delivery workers and other supply personnel remain under lockdown themselves. the challenge is getting food from markets and warehouses to people's home. the bottle next could pose a serious problem to the government. frank sigh is c o and founder of china crossroads and a risk specialist. he's a resident of shanghai and has been under locked on himself for over a week. when you induce food insecurity to a country whose purpose is to modernize and make people live better, i think it has a certain twist that, that, you know, people here are the leadership here or not, or not so comfortable with for the past 2 years, china is touted it's approach to a containing the virus and pointed towards its ramp and spread and the west as a mockup at superiority. this could break the narrative that china system is better at doing this, especially if it really explodes the next few weeks. so we could be at quite an an

inflection point and how would evolve and how the world comes to see trans performance on it. but how its own people see it is what matters the most. and authorities will need to get a handle on the situation quickly to prevent people frustration from spiraling any further. let's take a look now at some of the other global business stories making headlines. and speaking of shanghai, it's one of 2 chinese cities were taiwanese, i phone maker, peggy tron, has halted operations at its subsidiaries due to beijing. strict 0 cove. it measures the other is quin chung suspensions martha leaves go to apple in march major supplier fox han halted operations in the chinese tech hub of shin, gin, air travel and germany is recovering. but slowly, frankfurt airports, all 2900000 passengers and march. that's 800000 more than during the previous month, but still only half of pre pandemic levels. cargo traffic, however,

is slowing on cobit lock downs, and china and flight restrictions and connection with rushes war in ukraine. britain's annual inflation rate sword to 7 percent in march. that's the highest level in 3 decades as energy prices rocket costs are surging worldwide as economies reopen from pandemic locked downs and on fall out from the war in ukraine. the e u band imports of russian coal last week. the 1st fossil fuels targeted by western lead sanctions and a potential door opener to wider energy sanctions against russia. although same nations are largely dependent on russian fossil fuels, in particular, gas. here is look at several german businesses worried about what a gas embargo would mean for them. liquid steel is hot into mouth here at the f w, a steel casting plant in western germany. gases made it to melt the metal at very high temperature. a rush and gas embargo would be devastating. and before the

gain immediate shut down of the gas supply would mean the immediate shut down of operations here. energy demand in the glass industries also huge. 8000000 bottles and other containers roll up their production line at vigour and every single day. the glasses liquefied at $1600.00 degrees celsius, an essential step in the process to stop the glass hardening and written the blacksmith, then it wouldn't be possible to operate the glass melting tanks. and they would probably break down in the end of the heart of our industrial base, which collapse this results was on your columbian glass melting tanks and difficult to replace and would take months. a halting operations would have ripple effect throughout germany. after all, the company produces a quarter of old bottle and glass containers, and the sheds rising because russia and ukraine have dropped out as supplies if

india fumes longer, this is the round the clock operation. if these were no longer available, no wind turbines couldn't be built. russia provides more natural gas to germany than any other supplier. and it has long been a vital driver of the german economy. but even this can't reassure the companies. if the conflict escalates, it might not even be germany turning off the gas tap. but russia mismanagement corruption. then a pandemic sri lanka is caught in its worst economic crisis since its independence over 70 years ago. for weeks, people have been taken to the streets to protest against the government. on tuesday, sri lanka announced that it would no longer be able to pay it's foreign debts. gasoline, groceries, medicine, sri lanka has to import a variety of every day goods. but the government has run out of money,

prompting widespread shortages daily hours, long power cuts are adding to the frustration. the economic crisis has been driving people on to the streets for weeks in protest. even a fighting because they had been made up of it is done for a long time. not just a yellow do like the heavy they not for a very long time. and now the time for us to get to get this out out to the black again. it's got a bit distance tree lancaster tripped on the $51000000000.00 mountain of debt. the treasury's reserves are dwindling. with less than $2000000000.00 available to spent as of the end of march. on tuesday, the government announced it would stop honoring debt repayments for the time being hoping for aid from the international monetary fund and world bank. the crisis has been years in the making. successive governments have borrowed vast sums of money from foreign lend us to fund public services and ambitious interest structure

projects. the biggest lender being china, in an attempt to stimulate the economy. the current president slash texas the move back fi at. instead hitting government revenue islamist terrorist attacks and pandemic locked downs affected the tourism industry. the most important source of income on the island. and last but not least, the worn ukraine has led to a shop, rice and food prices. calls for president, got a buy a roger pox a to resign, a growing louder. he on the other hand, is asking for patience. and that's it for me in the business team you can find out more about these and other business stories online at d, w dot com slash business ross on youtube or the dw news channel. i'm seeing beardsley, thanks for watching. ah ah, [000:00:00;00]

with a the war is a challenge for the economy calls for a boycott. rushing gas are growing louder. but what would a supply fries mean? countries with their own liquid gas reserves have a clear advantage. how can europe free itself from gas dependency made in germany 90 minutes on

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ah, ah, ah, ah, this is a w news live from bad lane, u. s. president joe biden makes his most serious allegation. yes,

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