China's energy shortage to have worldwide impact
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Beijing: As Chinese factories shut down for the auspicious 'Golden Week' festival, experts are eyeing whether power shortages will crop up again when manufacturing resumes. The country is facing a severe energy crisis caused by the global pandemic and slowdown of fuel acquisition. The Chinese government has already started scouring the country for fuel resources as the slowdown has started to hit other parts of the world.
Local restrictions, shutdowns and lack of electricity have already impacted the agricultural sector with harvesting, milking and processing of meat being made more of a challenge. China is one of the world's largest agricultural suppliers and the rising costs are already affecting farmers which in turn is driving up global food prices. The UN Index of global food prices has estimated that it is at the highest in a decade.
Even sheep farmers as far away as Australia are suffering, with many of them not having enough buyers for wool as garment industries in China have also slowed down the processing of fabric. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Chinese wool mills saw production fall up to 40% in the last week due to power cuts.
If power shortages continue, the next industries to be affected could be the technical and automatics sector which is already reeling from the pandemic-induced shortage of electronic components. Economists are already predicting a slowdown in Chinese growth, a slowdown that will also affect manufacturing goods and exports, even as global shipping lines struggle to keep up with post-pandemic demand.