BEIJING — A senior industrial official has called for all-out efforts to ensure the stability and connectivity of industrial and supply chains to maintain industrial growth.

Efforts will be made to ensure the solid implementation of the "white list" approach to support the resumption of work for key companies and remove bottlenecks that still exist in some places, Xin Guobin, vice-minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said in an interview with Xinhua.

Xin made the remarks in response to the new challenges that emerged since mid-March, including sporadic resurgences of COVID-19 and a complex external environment, resulting in the suspension of some factory activities and freight transport.

With countermeasures taken swiftly to stabilize the industrial and supply chains, the country's industrial economy has shown positive signs of stabilization, seen in a narrowed decline in industrial electricity consumption for two consecutive weeks since the second week of April, Xin said.

Currently, the country has seen an accelerated pace of resumption of work and production in key areas and industries, Xin said, adding that 86.8 percent of enterprises among the 666 companies included in the first batch of the "white list" in Shanghai have resumed work by April 28.

Noting that the difficulties are short-term and temporary, Xin said the sound long-term fundamentals of China's industrial economy remain unchanged, and the overall trend of steady development will not change as well.

For the automobile industry, which was hit hard by the epidemic, Xin said the ministry will strengthen monitoring of the production in key automobile firms, proactively promote consumption and improve weak links in auto chips.

Moreover, the official also pledged further efforts to improve the business environment and help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) tide over difficulties.

Efforts will be made to ensure the solid implementation of the relief measures that have already been formulated and provide targeted services to the SMEs, Xin said.