KONTAN.CO.ID - BEIJING. The Chinese port city of Tianjin reported an increase in COVID-19 infections on Thursday as it stepped up efforts to rein in an outbreak that has spread the highly transmissible Omicron variant to another city.

Omicron has brought new challenges to China's strategy to quickly extinguish local outbreaks, which has taken on greater urgency in the run-up to the Winter Olympics starting on Feb. 4 and with the busy Lunar New Year holiday travel season beginning later this month.

Volkswagen Group's China unit said on Thursday it has shut a vehicle plant it jointly runs with FAW Group in Tianjin, as well as a component factory since Monday due to the outbreak.