Workers at a production workshop of Foxconn's technology park in Zhengzhou, Central China's Henan Province on September 4, 2021. The park is a major global smartphone manufacturing base. Photo: VCG

Foxconn's Zhengzhou plant in Central China's Henan Province, the largest manufacturing base for Apple's iPhone, has rapidly recovered and it achieved about 90 percent of its anticipated peak capacity in December, Foxconn confirmed to the Global Times on Tuesday.

The company expects a production peak to last for several months amid optimized anti-COVID measures and the company's incentive policies, indicating a full and speedy recovery from the staff shortage in November.

Since December, Foxconn has optimized and coordinated upstream and downstream configurations to ensure timely and sufficient supply of production materials, and shipments in the Zhengzhou industrial park have reached about 90 percent of the initial plans, Wang Xue, deputy general manager of Foxconn Zhengzhou Science and Technology Park, told the local Henan Daily on Monday. 

"We update the actual production status of Zhengzhou Foxconn to our customers every day," Wang said, noting that the current order status is good, and the peak period for production will be seen in the coming months.

Wang said that Foxconn's Zhengzhou plant has about 200,000 staff now. To ensure production during the Chinese Lunar New Year, which falls on January 22 this year, Foxconn has introduced a salary incentive policy to encourage employees to stay put during the holidays. Workers can receive up to 13,000 yuan ($1,881) per month in subsidies. 

Li Junqiang, a logistics manager who's responsible for distribution and shipments at the Foxconn Zhengzhou plant, told Henan Daily that Foxconn's cargo logistics volume "reached the highest in nearly a year in the past two days, with 243 shipments for a single day."

The speedy recovery comes after a staff shortage hit the Apple manufacturer amid a COVID flare-up in November. Production of iPhones could have slumped by as much as 30 percent at the plant in November, Reuters reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Foxconn has since launched a mass recruitment campaign, offering incentives such as higher bonuses for new candidates and referrals.

The Zhengzhou plant was known for producing the vast majority of high-end iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max devices.

Since Foxconn set up operations in Zhengzhou in 2010, its cumulative imports and exports have accounted for about 60 percent of Henan's total trade and 80 percent of Zhengzhou's, official data showed.

In the first three quarters of 2022, Henan's total trade reached 620.81 billion yuan, up 12.1 percent year-on-year. The export value of mobile phones was 186.48 billion yuan, accounting for 48.5 percent of the province's export value.