With the coronavirus crisis severely hurting the Chinese economy and businesses, a report has suggested that around 2.47 lakh companies in the country have declared bankruptcy during the first two months of 2020.

Citing a blog by business writer Wu Xiaobo, written in Chinese, supchina.com said that Guangdong was the most impacted province, with over 30,000 companies going out of business in January and February, followed by Shandong, Jiangsu, Sichuan, and Zhejiang.
Several reports have recently said that many Chinese companies, especially small businesses, are feeling the heat as the pandemic brought consumer activity to a halt. Almost 36 per cent of the private-owned firms that responded to a survey conducted by Tsinghua University in February said that they were hammered by the economic fallout from the outbreak and did not expect to survive after a month.

In another survey released in February, more than 60 per cent of the small and medium-sized enterprises in Shandong said that they could only hold out for a maximum of three months under current conditions.