Category: Foreign News

China will roll out more opening measures in the agriculture, mining, manufacturing and service sectors, and allow wholly foreign-funded enterprises to operate in more sectors, a senior official of the country’s top economic planner said.

The country has begun revising the negative list for foreign investment access and will continue to carry out test programs for further opening-up in free trade zones, Ning Jizhe, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told a press conference on the sidelines of the annual legislative session on March 6.

It will further shorten the negative list which outlines fields off-limits to foreign investors based on last year’s measures to substantially expand market access for foreign investors, Ning said.

The NDRC official introduced that a new catalog of encouraged foreign-invested industries will be released this year. The list aims to encourage foreign investment in more fields, and give full play to the role of foreign capital in the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, the development of emerging industries and coordinated regional development.

Foreign capital in China will be entitled to pre- and post-establishment national treatment, Ning said, adding that China is taking measures to remove access restrictions for foreign investment in areas outside the negative list to ensure that foreign investors are treated the same as domestic ones.

The country will also offer fair treatment for foreign-invested companies in terms of government procurement, setting of standards, industrial policies, technological policies, qualification licensing, registration, going public and access to financing, said Ning.

Ning disclosed that the country’s top economic planner is working with other departments and local governments to simplify management procedures such as filing, and facilitate and serve major foreign-invested projects.

The commission has so far granted approval to two batches of foreign-invested projects, and the third batch, including projects in new energy, advanced manufacturing, petrochemicals and electronic information, will be introduced this year.

The NDRC will support these projects not only in the use of land, ocean and energy resources, but also in project planning. It will also accelerate environmental impact assessment so as to further enhance investment facilitation.

Source:People’s Daily

By People’s Daily Online

A hot pot restaurant in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, has recently become a hit on social media. Since it opened on Feb. 14, the Valentine’s Day, it has successfully matched many young couples, gaining it the title of “Encounter Restaurant”.Li You, born in 1993, and Peng Qi, born in 1996, both from Wuhan, are the founders of this restaurant. At the end of last year, Li quit his job as a pilot and began to develop the “Encounter Restaurant”, while Peng, who studied mechanical engineering at university, provided technical support for the design of the restaurant.

The restaurant is divided into an eat-alone area and a dating area. The dating area has 10 seats, where men sit on the left and women sit on the right, separated by a removable wooden board. If both customers want to get to know each other better, they can press a button above the dining table that moves the board so that they can eat together.

Written on the guest tables in the restaurant are the words “Would you like to find someone to eat with?” alongside small items such as flowers, dolls, and guestbooks.

26-year-old Mr. Sun has visited the “Encounter Restaurant” many times, and has already made two friends. “The first time I came to this restaurant was just to try something new. I fell in love with it for its warm-hearted atmosphere. I hope to make more new friends here,” he said.

“More women come to the restaurant than men. The dating area is more popular than the eat-alone area,” said a member of the restaurant staff.

“The ‘Encounter Restaurant’ receives 170 customers per day and is very popular among young people. Young people today are busy with work, with smaller social circles. I hope the ‘Encounter Restaurant’ can provide them with an easy and fun way to meet people,” said Li You.

China’s three emerging first-tier cities – Hangzhou, Wuhan, and Chengdu, are becoming strong talent magnets, witnessing a huge inflow of talented professionals, said a report published on March 6.

The report, released by Chinese online job-hunting platform Zhipin.com, said the net outflow rate of talents from first-tier cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, to emerging cities and provincial capitals was 0.61 percent from January to February 2019, 0.08 percentage points higher than that the same period last year.

Wuhan and Xi’an have also become attractive destinations for the labor force over the past 20 months thanks to their favorable policies, geographical advantages, and high investment in technology, the report indicated.

Industries including pharmacy and medical services, artificial intelligence, internet of things and 5G technology saw the highest demand for professionals.

In many cities, there is not much space left for new talents in industries such as internet, education, finance, and professional services, but senior personnel in these sectors is still in high demand.

Data released by Zhipin.com showed that the average expected salary in new first-tier cities rose to 7,799 yuan ($1,162) in the first two months of this year, 5 percent higher than that in the same period of 2018.

Source: People’s Daily Online

By ZhongZiwei, Jing Yi from People’s Daily

By introducing a series of creative measures to purify waters and green land, southeast China’s Fujian Province has been moving forward for better ecological environment after it was designated by China as its first national ecological civilization pilot zone in June 2016.

The innovative approaches include a “river chief” mechanism that assigns specific steward along the waterway, intensive management of fragmented forest resources and development of smart fishing farm.
On October 12, 2018, retired Lin Jiashan, a former senior colonel, joined a team of voluntary “river chiefs” who were tasked with resource protection, pollution prevention and control, and ecological restoration.
At an accession ceremony in Datian county, Sanming city of Fujian province, he promised to make the utmost efforts to secure lucid rivers and lush mountains. Sitting on steep slopes of high mountains, the highly-populated county has been headache with water and soil erosion.
The county located in central Fujian was among the first places in the province to adopt a “river chief” scheme, and it also creatively introduced a voluntary campaign to encourage the public to join in the river protection drive.
The scheme introduced by the county in 2009 has prevented a soil loss of 42,700 tons and pushed the place another step closer to its vision of beautiful landscape with clear waters.
After three years of efforts, the county has set up a team composing of voluntary “river chiefs” and supervisors to protect resources, prevent and control pollution and restore ecological environment together.
The province also launched a project named “forest bank”, which allows intensive management of fragmented forest resources through trusteeship, buyout, lease and other ways. The first bank of such kind in the province was put into operation in Nanping city on December 3, 2018.
Xia Liuhua, the first customer of the ecological bank, has inked an agreement with the bank to deposit his 0.6 hectares of forest land. In the coming 20 years, he would get 3,720 yuan of earnings from the bank each year.
Upon the expiration of the mandatory period, Xia, the villager of Shunchangcounty, will also be offered with 60 percent of timber sales based on the market value and after a deduction of management costs.
The timber production under collective management is about 25 percent higher than that under fragmented operation, said Zhao Gangyuan, head of the county’s state forestry farm, adding that an operation by professional teams will not only raise ecological carrying capacity of the forest, but also increase its business value.
A program called “smart fishing farm” was launched by the province to upgrade the fishery ecosystem in Lianjiangcounty, the biggest producer of aquatic products in the province and the second largest one among the counties nationwide for 30-plus years.
The outdated and extensive model of offshore aquaculture has buried lurking peril for the costal ecological environment.
With an investment of 20 billion yuan, the program envisions to build a scaled and intelligent deep-sea breeding base by employing advanced marine equipment and technologies.
The county has found out an operation model connecting local government, businesses, financing platforms and fishermen together by reforming the marketization of eco-products, said Zhang Sheng, vice head of the county’s development and reform office.
With almost no input of government finance, the county generated a win-win result featured by growth of businesses, environmental protection and income increase of farmers, he added.
Those steps have made a greener Fujian. Data indicated that 66.8 percent of the provincial territory was covered by forest by 2018, topping the country for 40 years in a row.
As of the 12 rivers running through the province, the proportion their waters reaching Grade III or above was 24.8 percentage points higher than the national average. Only water at or above Grade III can be used for drinking, although treatment may be required.
In addition, the days with fine air quality were 15.7 percent more than national average. The density of PM2.5 — a measurement of fine particles in the air often used to gauge the severity of smog, was one third lower than the average figure countrywide.
A friendly ecosystem also cements the province’s advantages for growth. The province was put at the second place by China’s first regional green development index ranking, which took into account economic performance as well as various environmental indicators.

By Shi Xiaoyun and Xian Gan from People’s Daily

Medog county located in the southeastern part of the Tibet Autonomous Region has been lifted out of poverty earlier this year thanks to the country’s unremitting endeavor in poverty alleviation.

It is a big achievement for the county, said Kelsang Dekyi, deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC), and vice principal of Wanquan Primary School of Medog.

She is very glad to see her fellow townsmen embarking on the road to the moderately prosperous society with the country.

Medog was the last county in China to have access to highways. Even Xi Jinping, GeneralSecretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committeeshowed his concerns over the region by asking whether the roads to the county had been built when joining a panel discussion withdeputies from Tibet during the first session of the 12th NPC in 2013. Till today, this scene still remains fresh in the mind of the deputies.

“Because the roads leading to my students’ homes were muddy, I always smudged their doorways when visiting them. However, this time when I passed by the Zhamo–Medog Highway, I saw constructors working on many sites,” said Kelsang.

Medog is going through dramatic changes everywhere, including the signboards being renovated on the Zhamo–Medog Highway, the refitted roads, as well as the squares and parks newly constructed to offer better entertainment to the people, the NPC deputy noted.

At present, 6 of the 7 townships in Medog have access to hardened roads, and the residents living in the only roadless one will be relocated to a place with better conditions. So far, most of the villages in the county have built roads, some of them even paved the roads to the gates of the villagers.

“Medog is attracting more tourists thanks to the convenient traffic, which brings new development to the county that once remained unknown to the outside world,” Kelsang told People’s Daily.

Thanks to the efforts made in poverty relief, the education in Medog is also taking a turn for the better. As an educator with 17 years of experiences, Kelsang has a particular feeling of the changes.

“We used to have classes in shabby rooms and had to suspend classes on rainy days,” Kelsang recalled, adding that the arms and hands of the teachers and students were often lacerated when covering the rooftop with thatch.

Apart from the poor conditions, the teaching facilities were also far from enough to meet education demand.

“There was only one teacher at the school when I was a student, and two of my brothers and I had to share one bench on classes,” Kelsang remembered.

“But now I’m really happy to see the new classrooms, dormitories, cafeteria, reading room and science lab, and we even have multimedia teaching devices,” she said.

What has been improved is not only the hardware. With the efforts on balancing teaching resources and educational aiding projects, more and more excellent teachers in the region and from other parts of China are coming to Medog for exchange programs. Besides, teachers in the county also have opportunities to improve themselves through study tours in other regions.

Thanks to the steady improvement of educational resources and quality in recent years, 100 percent of the students can be admitted to schools of a higher grade, up from 30 percent in the past.

China has implemented the targeted poverty alleviation for six years, and the poverty eradication strategy for three years, reducing impoverished population to 16.6 million in 2018 from 98.99 million in 2012, said Liu Yongfu, director of China’s State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development at a press conference held on March 7.

Another 10 million people would be lifted out of poverty this year, Liu added.

By Bai Yang, People’s Daily

Beijing Daxing International Airport is expected to be completed onJune 30 this year and put into usebefore September 30, said Feng Zhenglin, director of the Civil AviationAdministration of China (CAAC).

Zheng made the statement during an interview after the opening meeting of the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress. The construction of the airport’s main body has been completed, while the internal furnishing as well as equipment installation and testing are underway.
10 of the 32 international airlines newly approved by the CAAC are from thisnew mega-airport, including the popular routes to Russia’s St. Petersburg, South Korea’s Busan, and Egypt’s Cairo, according to a statement issued by the organization this month.
“The new airport is expected to handle 45 million passengers annually by 2022 and 72 million by 2025,” Feng introduced.
The CAAC head further added that with a vision of building a “safe, green, intelligent and humanistic” airport, the new aviation hub was constructed according to the standards for major modern international airports.
The airport, designed to become the world’s largest, has a long-term plan to expand annual passenger capacity to 100 million.
Li Jianhua, project manager of the main terminal construction, said that he and his team completed the world’s most complicated and the largestmechanical and electrical installation last year.
They installed 247,000 sets of electromechanical devices, 1,800 kilometers of cables and wires, millions of connectors, andair hoses covering a total area of nearly 73 standard football pitches, to the core zone of the world’s largest single terminal.
During the peak of construction, more than 8,000 workers were working simultaneously at the main terminal in a day, Li introduced.
The main terminal of the airport has a huge steel-framed roof that covers 180,000 square meters, the largest of its kind in the world. It is incredible that it only took 80 days for the constructors to install such a big ceiling with the help of robotic measurement. The error procession was limited within one millimeter, which is nothing but a miracle.
According to Li, the internal furnishing is expected to be finished by April 30, and the fire control acceptance check is scheduled in May. The final construction acceptance would begin in mid-June, he said.
“We aim to build a world-class project, and that’s why we muststay committed to excellence,” he added.
An integrated transportation network has been planned together with the new airport, including seven transportation projects of expressway, inter-city rail transit, high-speed rail and subway. The new airport will be connected to Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei by rail transit.
Besides, the new airport is expected to relieve the pressure of the Beijing Capital International Airport that rose as the world’s second busiest airport in 2018, only after the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport of the US.

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The 2022 Beijing Winter Games is striving to work out a solution to make sure win-win development between the Olympic Games and host cities, according to a legacy plan released recently.

The plan, called the “Strategic Plan for the Heritage of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games”, aims to help host cities incorporate lasting benefits before, during and after the Games.

As a city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics, Beijing has rich Olympic legacies, especially in venue and infrastructure construction, Liu Yumin, director the planning and construction department of the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, said on Feb.19 when the legacy plan was released.

Beijing 2022 will make maximum use of the venues and facilities for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, Liu introduced, adding that there are 13 competition and non-competition venues in Beijing, of which 11 were previously used by the 2008 Games.

An “eco-friendly event” was set as the core design concept when building the Yanqing zone located on Xiaohaituo mountain in northern outskirt of Beijing, which will have five venues for alpine skiing, sleighing and luge, Liu said.

Upon completion, Yanqing Zone will be turned into a world-class ski competition center and a leisure winter sports resort for the public. Facilities of three venues in the Yanqing zone will be reused after the games, he added.

According to its post-2022 plan, the alpine skiing center will be the venue for training of the Chinese national team and other domestic and foreign professional teams, as well as for hosting international events.

The sleighing center will be opened to the public and host mass tourism activities, and Winter Olympic village will be transformed into a hot spring resort. Many ski trails will be built in Yanqing to attract more public participation.

Sustainability is given more weight by Beijing 2022, which can be revealed by its measures in ecological environmental protection and in utilization of the venues after the Games.

After collecting the suggestions of top experts, the organizing committee has formulated a set of green standards for the evaluation of winter sports venues in Beijing and Hebei.

The standards are the first of the kind in China, and some of them are even the first in the world. In addition, the competition area of the Winter Olympics will be fully powered by green energy, the first in the Olympic history.

Source: People’s Daily

By Huan Xiang fromPeople’s Daily

85 percent of Chinese people living below the poverty line – a per capita annual income of 2,300 yuan ($342), have been lifted out of poverty, said Liu Yongfu, director of the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development.

Liu made the remarks at a press conference during the second session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC)held on March 7 in Beijing.
China has made remarkable achievementsin poverty alleviation. It lifted 80 million people out of poverty in the past 6 years, with the impoverished population down from 98.99 million at the end of 2012 to 16.60 million at the end of last year, according to the director. An average of over 13 million people was lifted above the poverty line each year during that period.

It has been six years since the country carried out targeted poverty alleviationin 2012 and three years since the campaign to eradicate povertyin 2015.
By 2020, the rural population living below the current poverty threshold and impoverished counties will all be lifted out of poverty. In addition, regional poverty will also be eliminated by that time, according to the target set by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

By the end of 2015, there were still 832 impoverished counties in China.28 were lifted out of poverty in 2016and 125 in 2017.Around 280 impoverished counties are expected to get rid of poverty last year. The final number would soon be declared after assessment, Liu introduced.
In 2013,there were 128,000registeredimpoverished villages and the number dropped to 26,000 by the end of last year.
Over 10million people and around 300 counties are expected to be lifted out of poverty this year. By 2020, the impoverished population will be reduced to less than 6 million, and the number of impoverished counties to about 60.
China has full confidence to win the battle against poverty, Liu noted.

Aerial photography, selfie skills, fashion design, traditional Chinese medicine, piano, singing and dancing… These various courses at Chinese universities for the elderly help senior citizens keep with the times and enjoy life after retirement.

“Thanks to the University for the Elderly, with fittings like the fisheye lens, macro lens, and wide-angle lens, I can make photos taken with a mobile phone look as if they were taken with an SLR camera,” said a 70-year-old woman surnamed Yu, from Jianghan District of Wuhan City, capital of central China’s Hubei Province.

Before going to the University for the Elderly, Yu could hardly use a smartphone.

In the University for the Elderly located in Jianghan District, the smartphone photography course is popular among senior citizens. It not only teaches students photography skills, but also how to use professional photography and retouching software, said Ye Sheng, teacher of the course.

“We had planned to open a single class for 40 people, but ended up with four classes and 170 students,” explained Feng Zhongmin, principal of the university, disclosing that senior citizens are enthusiastic about learning.

According to Feng, the university first opened a smartphone course in early 2015, and with the rapid development and popularity of mobile internet, the course became more and more popular, expanding from the initial two classes to 11 classes today.

Since the autumn semester of last year, another university for the elderly in Wuhan launched a course on aerial photography using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and has hired two UAV research and development, production, and driving professionals to teach the class.

After one semester, 90 percent of the over 50 students in the two university campuses have mastered the skills necessary to take aerial photos with UAVs. The university is going to offer students an advanced course on UAV photography, teaching them practical skills for the processing of aerial photos and videos.

Wan Nianchun, principal of the Hubei Province University for the Elderly, disclosed that there are currently six schools, 23 majors, and 280 classes in the university, offering various courses such as smartphone use, English, cooking, and tea art to nearly 8,000 students.

Li Guoli, 61, has been a student of the university since 2012. She had dreamed of playing the piano since she was a child, but due to a busy life, she wasn’t able to realize the dream. After retirement, Li joined the elementary piano course, and started her journey towards her goal.

“I play piano for at least two hours every day. I don’t feel good if even one day passes without playing piano,” said Li, who won first prize in a piano contest for students of universities for the elderly in the south-central region of China in November 2014.

With the growing popularity of universities for the elderly across the country, it has become more difficult for senior citizens to enroll. To solve this problem, many universities for the elderly have sought to provide more opportunities by integrating online and offline educational resources.

Besides expanding the educational areas of universities, a number of remote educational websites, radio programs, and online webcasts have been launched by various universities to benefit more senior citizens all over the country.

According to Feng, the University for the Elderly in Jianghan District of Wuhan rolled out online classes through webcasts last May, bringing courses such as traditional Chinese medicine and vocal music into the online classrooms.

Senior citizens from 100 district communities can takethe classes online at the same time, explained Feng, adding that they can also benefit from online learning via online recorded programs and uploaded course materials.

In Hubei Province University for the Elderly, after the completion of one educational program, students are allowed to graduate from the university or transfer to other schools or majors.

Source: People’s Daily Online

By Liu Xiaojing and Zou Zhidong

What’s the key word about “poverty alleviation” in your mind? Farming, animal husbandry, or migrant workers?

Now a post-1980s village official has explored a modern way to help fight poverty by exploiting online resources.

Wu Yusheng, a poverty alleviation official in Gaibao village, Liping county, Southwest China’s Guizhou Province, assists villagers to fight poverty with his team Qixiannü (seven fairies) through livestreaming and shooting short videos of the food, life, and culture of the Dong ethnic group.

Wu started his poverty alleviation work in February 2018. Since he has failed in traditional businesses including farming and animal husbandry in his first month, the 31-year-old official noticed the emergence of short video apps and decided to cater to the trend.

In the beginning, without any experience of video shooting and management, Wu learned from photographers in the county and the internet independently. However, Wu’s project did not run effectively.

The team’s name Qixiannü originates from a legend. “There is a Dong-style song in Gaibao village, which was brought to the Dong women by seven fairies and carried forward until now,” Wu said.

The legend gave Wu inspiration. In Wu’s eye, women in Dong villages are fairies in reality, who can be chosen as the brand’s image to promote Dong culture and help villagers sell local products on video apps.

However, when he determined to pick up women to join him, nothing went smoothly.

Wu Mengxia, now one of the members of Qixiannü, was found by Wu Yusheng when she was livestreaming on Kuaishou, a popular short video app in China. “She thought I was a cheat. I had invited her twice, but she never responded,” Wu Yusheng said.

Besides, due to conservative minds, nobody believed that web hosting could be a decent job. “Nobody was persuaded the first time,” Wu said.

The situation turned better when Wu Lanxin, who then worked in an art troupe in Li Ping’s Zhaoxing township, joined the team.

“I accepted to join Qixiannü without hesitation when Mr Wu invited me since I am also fond of shooting videos via short video apps,” Wu Lanxin said.

After Qixiannü published several videos about Dong culture and harvesting followers, Wu Mengxia and another five women were persuaded to join the team.

Wu Yusheng and his team have published 286 video clips on short video platform Kuaishou, amassing 150,000 followers so far. Their fame brought them business opportunities to help other villagers sell local products online, such as Dong clothing, home-made food, and tea to their followers, and the whole village is leaving poverty step-by-step.

Wu and his team have achieved success. Now Gaibao village has removed the label of poverty, keeping the number of low income families in the whole village below 3 percent in line with the national standard. In addition, as for Qixiannü members themselves, their monthly income improved from 1,500 yuan to 5,000 yuan.

“We hope more people will know Guizhou as well as Dong culture by our efforts,” Wu Lanxin said.

Wu Yusheng’s success also lightened up villager’s passion of self-employment.

“Villagers have freed their minds and realized it is necessary to keep up with times to alleviate poverty,” Wu said.

Now Wu is preparing to establish a “wanghong (internet celebrity) college” in Liping county, and plans to train all web hosts in the county.

“There are over 400 villages in Liping county, and all of them can duplicate the methods of Gaibao village to alleviate poverty,” Wu said.

“I hope more grassroots web celebrity will spring up, like Qixiannü, promoting our culture and local products to fight poverty,” he said.

Source:Global Times/ People’s Daily