Photo takes on May 14, 2019 shows an inside view of the first completed tunnel project of Jakarta to Bandung High Speed Rail in Walini, West Java, Indonesia. The 142.3 km-long Chinese-built High Speed Railway (HSR) project will connect Indonesia's capital Jakarta and West Java's Bandung in the southeast. (Photo: Xinhua)

China's foreign trade enterprises are accelerating the resumption of production amid the fight against the new virus, with 70 percent of key companies in East Chi-na's Zhejiang and Shandong provinces already operational.

Foreign trade enterprises in East China's Jiangsu and South China's Guangdong - both large foreign trade provinces - are also speeding up efforts to reopen and have made progress, Li Xingqian, head of the Department of Foreign Trade at the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said at a press briefing on Thursday.

In addition, overseas projects invested and operated by Chinese companies are sta-ble overall, and the impact of the coronavirus on Chinese companies going global is temporary and confined, MOFCOM spokesperson Gao Feng said at the conference.

A Chinese worker at the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail project in Indonesia told the Global Times that construction of the railway did not stop amid the coronavirus outbreak and workers were only on holiday for a few days during the Spring Festival.

"However, not many workers at the project returned to their hometowns in China during the holidays, so there is not much impact in terms of labor shortages," he said, asking to remain anonymous.

He said the supply of construction materials is relatively tight because importing them from China has become more difficult. "This will have some impact on the pro-ject's schedule, but not much," he said.

MOFCOM is stepping up communications and coordination with host nations to provide convenience for the entry of workers and equipment necessary for bilateral projects, Gao said.

The value of services outsourcing contracts that the US awarded to Chinese firms rose by 10.3 percent year-on-year to hit $132.58 billion in 2019, with growth speed-ing up 5.6 percentage points from 2018. More than half of the contracts came from US, EU and Belt and Road markets, according to MOFCOM.

At Thursday's briefing, the ministry also reassured the markets that the nation's car industry, among many virus-hit sectors, remains resilient. 

Car dealers are slowly recommencing operations and consumer purchases are re-bounding slowly, suggesting the virus' impact on car sales is short-term, said ministry official Wang Bin. 

Wang noted that it is firmly believed that China's car market still has plenty of growth potential ahead and consumer demand for vehicles remains robust.

The epidemic will only have a phased impact on the car industry. With the disease moving toward containment and production gradually returning to normal, con-sumers are expected to engage in compensatory car purchasing, the official re-marked. 

The ministry revealed that it will work with relevant government departments to consider rolling out measures to stabilize car consumption, in an effort to reduce the virus' impact on the auto market. Local governments are also encouraged to raise quotas for traditional car purchases and facilitate vehicle trade-ins.