US national flags are blown by gusts of wind in front of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, the United States, April 13, 2020. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

NEW YORK, May 14 (Xinhua) -- The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has planned to partially reopen its trading floor later this month, which was closed in late March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The NYSE trading floor will begin a phased reopening on May 26 ... and look forward to welcoming home members of our Trading Floor community," Stacey Cunningham, president of the exchange, tweeted Thursday.

The facility, located in downtown Manhattan, will reopen to "a subset of floor brokers" the day after Memorial Day with "vital new safety measures," Cunningham said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier in the day.

The announcement came as a growing number of U.S. states started to ease lockdown restrictions, amid fears of a re-acceleration in COVID-19 cases.

New York is poised to reopen parts of the state on Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo said earlier this week.

The NYSE closed its trading floor and shifted to fully electronic trading on March 23 as a precautionary step after two people tested positive for the coronavirus.