Due to theremarkable achievements of the pandemic control and prevention, the city movesfaster for production and work resumption. Therefore, the production andlivelihood in Jingzhou returns to normal gradually. The reporter learned fromthe Jingzhou MunicipalBureau of Commerce that according to the statistics, the online retailsales of physical goods in Jingzhou from January to April has witnessed aslight increase, which is a testament to the recovery of the consumptionmarket.

Since theoutbreak of COVID-19, the primary, secondary and tertiary industries inJingzhou have all experienced hardship and continuous impact to varyingdegrees. From January to April, Jingzhou's online retail sales amounted to1,496.293 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 23.2%. Among them, that ofphysical goods reached 1,135.468 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.6%.On the contrary, that of non-physical goods reached 360.8825 million yuan, ayear-on-year decrease of 59.2%. Industries such as catering, entertainment, leisure,tourism, education and training in the city are undergoing unprecedenteddifficulty.

Wang Xiangtuo, SecretaryGeneral of the JingzhouFood Industry Association, said that in the first half of this year, salesof food necessities such as rice, noodles, oil, milk powder remains stable,while sales of unnecessary food such as biscuits and beverages were severelyhit by the pandemic. In addition, due to the limit of the expiration date, manysnacks, which were popular before the pandemic, must be discounted or removedfrom the shelves recently.