Economic impact

But in recent days the usually bustling financial centre has been stopped in its tracks after a spike in coronavirus cases.

With little notice, officials imposed two staggered waves of lockdowns on the city's more than 26m residents. The eastern side of Shanghai has just been through four days of tight restrictions. The western part began its four-day isolation on 1 April.

The latest round of quarantining is China's largest since the coronavirus outbreak was first identified in Wuhan at the end of 2019.

Tonga is the second largest contributor of RSE labour with more than 1600 workers participating in the scheme in the past year.

Sefita Hao'uli said Tonga would like to continue to grow seasonal worker numbers and see the scheme expand to other sectors such as hospitality, fisheries and old age care.

But he said research needs to be done into the social and economic impacts of the scheme on the home labour market and Tongan society in general.