Silvercorp had suspended production on January 17 and was scheduled to restart on February 1 after the Lunar New Year holiday.

However China's central government extended the holiday to February 3 due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The World Health Organisation said yesterday there were 73,332 confirmed cases of COVID-19 globally, with a new 1,891 cases in China taking the country's tally to 72,528 and 1,870 deaths.

Silvercorp had earlier said it expected a restart date of February 10.

"The company expects to catch-up on the lost production time with shortened holidays in the future," it said on January 29.

Yesterday's brief announcement did not refer to guidance.

The company's guidance for the year to March 31 was 6.1 million ounces of silver, 65.1 million pounds of lead and 21.8Mlb of zinc.

It had said in early February it expected these figures to increase in fiscal 2021, by 2-7% for silver, 2-5% for lead and 12-22% for zinc.

Its flagship operation is the Ying Mining District in Henan province.

It also has the GC silver/zinc mine in Guangdong, and is looking to bring BYP in Hunan back into production.

The former lead-zinc mine was suspended in August 2014 but Silvercorp is focusing on BYP's circa 500,000 ounce gold resource.

It had US$155.1 million in cash and short-term investments at December 31.

Its share price gained 2.3% yesterday to C$5.37, a midpoint in its one-year range, capitalising it at $929.5 million (US$701.7 million).