Suzhou of East China's Jiangsu province announced on Sunday that all enterprises in the city will start operations no earlier than Feb 9, the first one to make such move in a response to the central authority's call to extend the Spring Festival holiday amid the novel coronavirus epidemic.

According to a notice posted by the official Weibo account of the information office of the Suzhou government, all working units inside the city should mobilize and ask their working staffs who had traveled outside Suzhou for the Spring Festival "not to come back beforehand".

It also said all schools in Suzhou will open "no earlier than Feb 18".

A Sunday meeting of the leading group of the Communist Party of China Central Committee on coping with the novel coronavirus decided that measures, such as extending the Spring Festival holiday, which is scheduled between Jan 24 and 30, and delaying the start of the spring semester at schools, should be taken to reduce the upcoming population flow.