Exclusive | China power crisis: US firms want outages to be better managed as they complain of disruption to their operations
- China’s power crisis has disrupted US firms’ sophisticated supply chains, leading to lost business opportunities and cancelled orders, says AmCham’s Ker Gibbs
- AmCham’s 3,000 members were in talks with local authorities on ways to mitigate the power outages amid uncertainty on the duration of the cuts
US companies operating in China have been badly affected by the recent power rationing measures across the mainland, which have led to lost business opportunities, cancellation of orders and wastage of raw materials, said Ker Gibbs, president of the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Shanghai.
The association’s over 3,000 members representing some 1,200 companies were in talks with local authorities on ways to mitigate the power outages amid uncertainty on the duration of the cuts.
“They were being told literally an hour or two ahead of time that they need to shut down,” he told the Post on Thursday, after hosting a teleconference with around 40 members from as far as Tianjin in the north to Guangdong in the south. “That type of abrupt shutdown can actually cause damage to equipment [and] even cause safety issues.”
The disruption to sophisticated supply chains – many linked to overseas operations – has already caused materials wastage, lost opportunities and cancelled orders, he added.
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Chinese manufacturing thrown into disarray as country's electricity crisis rolls on
“We generally have a high level of trust in the competence of the government to correct the issues and get us back on track. In the short term, what we are looking for is better coordination, more advance notice [and] better communication so that power consumption could be [better] managed.”
At least 20 of China’s 31 provincial-level jurisdictions are rationing electricity to play catch-up, after seven failed to meet both of Beijing’s energy consumption and intensity control targets in the first half. The targets were handed down as China aims to cut energy intensity by 3 per cent this year and a cumulative 13.5 per cent through to 2025, as part of longer term decarbonisation goals.
