“They did not say they were cancelling the orders, but instead asked us not to ship the goods. But they did not proceed with the payment either. We now have goods sitting in the warehouse and may have to wait for a few months to know what’s next,” she said.

About 1,300 kilometres away in Guangzhou, Lindsay, a sales representative at Guangzhou Fengming Auto Parts Company who declined to give her surname, is suffering from the same problem.

Twenty-five per cent of the company’s revenue comes from US and European markets, but orders dropped by 70 to 80 per cent in March due to massive car factories closures across many countries, she said.

“It is a fact that we are severely affected, but at least our company is still running,” she said.

Amid mounting uncertainty, the coronavirus pandemic – which has claimed the lives of more than 52,000 people and infected more than 1 million worldwide – is creating new nightmares for many Chinese auto parts suppliers, who were already reeling from the US-China trade war.

Exports in March could be hit harder, said Fred Zhang, a Shanghai-based industry expert at a logistic company specialising in the trade of auto parts. In March many ports around the world – not just the US and Europe – had been sealed off, while cargoes that were caught at sea had to be shipped back to China, Zhang said.

Even the ports that were still open were plagued by a lack of manpower to take goods off ships and clear customs due to directives for people to stay at home, cases reminiscent of what happened at Chinese docks through February.

But the synchronised shutdown of car factories across much of the world happening now is unprecedented. While many auto plants were repurposed to make armaments during the Second World War, the world has never seen such a coordinated closure of automotive plants.

Despite the fact that most of its Chinese plants were back up and running, Volkswagen, the world’s biggest car maker, extended the production suspension at its German plants to April 9, an additional four days than originally planned, due to a “fall in demand in the automobile market and the challenges faced by the supply chain”.

In the US, Ford is delaying initial plans to restart vehicle production on April 6 and 14 at several of its plants, without giving a specific date for restart.

Toyota has suspended its plants in Canada, Mexico, and the US until 18 April, due to fears over the pandemic as well as a decline in vehicle demand. The Japanese auto giant said it would “take appropriate action in a timely manner” once situations change.

In 2019, China exported US$53 billion worth of auto parts, a 3.6 per cent drop from a year earlier. Among the buyers, the US took the top spot, followed by Japan, Mexico, and Germany, according to Chinese customs data.

At a press conference in Beijing on Thursday, Liu Changyu, deputy director of foreign trade at the Ministry of Commerce, acknowledged that the automotive supply chain was vulnerable and pledged support in areas like logistics, production and finding alternative customers.

Weifang Shengao Machinery Co, which exports auto parts from China’s easterly Shandong province, lost about 50 per cent of its orders last month, according to sales representative Peter Yang. The company is now trying to shift to the domestic market and laying off some employees, Yang said.

About 50 per cent of auto parts suppliers in China are privately owned, and more than 70 per cent of the suppliers are small enterprises like Yang’s company.

Nor is it easy to make the switch.

“Every car part has an original equipment code and it could be different from home and abroad, even for the same vehicle model. For example, if the screw holes are different, then the screws for export will not fit the domestic market model. It cannot be shifted overnight,” said industry expert Zhang.