The novel coronavirus pandemic has hit many enterprises hard. Chinese multinationals face mounting difficulties in overseas cash management，cross-border payments and exchange rate risk management. As participants in a globalized economy，these companies must attach great importance to cross-border capital management，in order to come through this period safely. That means they must improve their internal management processes，and keep abreast of new policy moves，while emphasizing risk management.

The global economy has been dealt a heavy blow by the coronavirus pandemic. As Gao Feng，spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce，said at a news conference on April 30，the impact on China's foreign trade has mainly been on the demand side. The lack of external demand and the rise in economic uncertainties pose unprecedented challenges to China's corporate sector.  Chinese multinationals have been hit especially hard. They have new difficulties getting payments from overseas on time due to postponed project starts，business lockdowns，slower customs clearance，reduced transport efficiency，the effect of capital constraints on customers，and broad work-from-home guidelines. At the same time，weak demand has led to a crash in orders from overseas customers and that in turn has led to rising inventories. As a result，storage costs for finished goods and raw materials are becoming an increasing burden.

The efficiency of capital settlements has decreased. Compared with domestic transactions，cross-border services require more intermediate steps and documentation and that requires additional time.  That is because cross-border transactions are affected by factors such as the type of business，trading and settlement currencies and clearing methods. Since the outbreak of the pandemic，it has become more time-consuming for enterprises to obtain overseas funds as global payment and settlement systems have faced unprecedented challenges. Offline business has been halted completely，but not all of the international settlement business has been moved online. Consequently，many business documents cannot be obtained in time.

Moreover，the interconnection between domestic and overseas funds is facing bigger obstacles. For a long time，Chinese multinational enterprises have pursued the "unified management of global capital." Nevertheless，there still are barriers to the cross-border flow of capital owing to the great differences between the domestic and foreign economies in terms of the role of the market，the policy environment，financial supervision systems and credit rating mechanisms. What is worse，the pandemic which was first seen in China and then spread across the world，is likely to be prolonged. To address it，countries have introduced economic and financial policies one after another. Hence，the balance of domestic and foreign capital of multinational enterprises has been constantly changing.