now the government says, can't it spills welcome to the show i'm see convincing. 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 is the countries financial hub and its biggest port, and it's been under strict lockdown for several weeks now. data that's not fully captured in the latest figures. access in shanghai is severely restricted. there have 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 drop 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 does that? sure. 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 january, february. but the really interesting figure here is the import figure. so we see an actual like dip compared to this time last year, not 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 for destruction. so in terms of the war and 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 importance 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 in 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. what that does 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 coming out of 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 lose 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 ports and highs down by around 40 percent. there companies on the ground there. and then you touched on the, on the figure there from that that will, you know, trade track of that says value merchandise. and by been 26 percent,

that's a huge amount. and you know, the problem in shanghai is basically the factories are closed. warehouses are close, many 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 world busiest port and one of the major economic centers, the words 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 with in 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 they're there be 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 looking for historic 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. they're in shanghai and in china,

arthur sullivan, doug business, thank you very much. 1000000 people under locked down with limited access to groceries and no clear into the measures in sight or correspond fabi and credit for incentives. this report for weeks, the streets of shanghai have been empty. supermarkets, shot delivery workers that would normally be leaving their way through the city are nowhere to be seen. social media is full of 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 seem looting a supermarket authorities scrambling to deliver supplies, but they are huge probably know for me for delivering vegetables. some are getting their food early, some are getting late, it has a big impact on people's lives. he said, reports say the biggest hurdle and the delivery of goods is at the last mile. many

delivery workers and other supply personnel remain under locked down themselves. the challenge is in getting food from markets and warehouses to people's home. the bottlenecks could pose a serious problem to the government. frank spy is c o and found 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 adds a certain twist that, that, you know, people here and the leadership here are not, are not so comfortable with for the past 2 years, china is touted its approach towards containing the virus and pointed towards its ramp and spread in the west as a mark of superiority. this could break the narrative that china system is better at doing this, especially if it really explode the next few weeks. so we could be at quite an an inflection point in how cobra devolves and how the world comes to see trans

performance uncovered. 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 low to apple in march. major supplier fox con, halted operations in the chinese tech hub of shin. gin. air travel in 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 panoramic levels. cargo traffic however, is slowing on cobra locked downs in china and flight restrictions and connection

with russia's war and ukraine. britain's annual inflation rate, sorts of 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 and 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's look at several german businesses worried about what a gas embargo would mean for them. liquid steel is pot into mouth here at the f w. a steel casting plant in western germany. gases made it to melt the metal at very high temperatures. a ration gas embargo would be devastating. and the for the game a media 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 contain his role of the production line at vigour and every single day. the glass is 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 columbia 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. yes, yes, yes. one for this is the round the clock operation. if production stops for 4 weeks,

12 weeks, 2 years, and some items just won't get any packaging, i'm for kind of a pickle medical at f w h 2 at production stop would have a knock on effect. now the industries, the costing the costs are made and hard to replace. ironically, even germany's transition to grain energy would be under threat without steal foundries. it has been cut off every wind turbine, 5 megawatts. offshore has cost things for $100.00 tons. machine carry us roto hops 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 than a pandemic,

sri lanka, continents worse 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 its 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. be been 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 today. black again, is gonna get this done. tree lancaster trapped on the $51000000000.00 mountain of

debt. the treasury's reserves are dwindling. with less than $2000000000.00 available to spend. 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 heading 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 as 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 are also on youtube or the dw news channel. i'm seeking, beardsley, thanks for watching. ah ah, [000:00:00;00] with ah,

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ah ah. this is a w news line from berlin. mounting evidence of russian war crimes in ukraine. investigators exhumed bodies from mass graves of the international criminal court. that's the whole country as a crime scene. u. s. president joe biden describes the war as a genocide and flooding in south africa, claims hundreds of lives and lots of people are still missing after heavy rain and mud slides sweep away homes and infrastructure in one of south africa that deadly