On any normal morning, thousands of workers stream in and out of the huge gates of Foxconn Zhengzhou Science Park, a 1.4m square metre compound in the central Chinese province of Henan.
But on Tuesday, there was only one man at the gates: a customs official standing guard. As Chinese authorities scramble to contain an outbreak of novel coronavirus, factories have been ordered to remain shut until Monday following last week’s lunar new year holiday, this heart of the global technology supply chain has stopped beating.
The customs inspectors normally make it easy for Apple to quickly export the smartphones made here — the world’s largest iPhone factory — each day. But the official did not know when work at the plant would resume.