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Chinas central bank vows stronger financial support for enterprises

(Xinhua)15:57, August 03, 2020

Chinas central bank will ramp up efforts to offer financial support for enterprises and ensure employment.

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the Peoples Bank of China (PBOC) has stepped up measures including strengthening counter-cyclical policies, keeping liquidity reasonable and deferring loan and interest repayments for micro, small and medium firms, PBOC governor Yi Gang said at a recent symposium.

Having learned about the implementation of supportive policies and difficulties of enterprises, Yi called for innovation in financial services, and better protecting market entities and meeting their new financing demands.

In the meantime, preferential policies must be implemented fully to underpin employment and development of the real economy, Yi said.

In view of the current financing problems of small and micro enterprises, Yi urged departments of the PBOC to conduct in-depth research and improve the relevance and effectiveness of monetary and credit policies.

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China speeds up construction of data centers

(Peoples Daily Online)14:14, August 03, 2020

The construction of new infrastructure including 5G and data centers has been picking up speed in China, fuelled by a surge in demand for telecommuting, online entertainment, and voice and video call services.

Photo shows a scene of a data center of Chindata Group. (Photo/People鈥檚 Daily)

Several companies have announced plans to scale up their data centers. Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba will invest 200 billion yuan (about $28.7 billion) in the construction of data centers and other projects, while Baidu, the leading search engine in China, plans to have 5 million servers in place in 10 years.

In July, Chinese internet giant Tencent started offering services from its data center, which can house more than 1 million servers, located in Qingyuan, south China鈥檚 Guangdong province.

With the rapid development of the digital economy, the trend of building large big data centers in the country is becoming more obvious. Data shows that the number of ultra-large-scale and large data centers accounted for 12.7 percent of the total data centers in China in 2019.

Due to the lack of scalability of traditional data centers, the next generation will be on-demand in the digital era.

The new generation of data centers should be standard, modular, intelligent, green and safe, according to Zhang Chunming, an associate researcher at the Institute of Computing Technology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Modular means that a data center can be built with prefabricated modules such as temperature control and IT modules, just like building with Lego blocks, Zhang added.

The modular data center solution can drastically save on time and construction costs. It takes just six months to build a data center using prefabricated modules, compared to 18 months with the traditional construction model. For example, the prefabricated modular data center of Huawei Cloud, a subsidiary of the Chinese tech giant Huawei, in Guangdong鈥檚 Dongguan was completed in six months. The five-story center has 1,000 standard server cabinets.

The current cloud data centers will be upgraded to intelligent computing centers due to the exponential growth in demand for artificial intelligence computing, which will account for more than 80 percent of future computing.

Experts predict that in five to 10 years, intelligent computing centers will be deployed in key industries and regions on a large scale, which will become the core infrastructure for building a smart society with an intelligent economy.

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Chinas progress in economic resumption

(Xinhua)09:08, August 04, 2020

Chinas success in controlling the COVID-19 epidemic means the economy is steadily reviving. The following facts and figures indicate how the country is forging ahead in resuming work and production:

— Chinas futures market in July continued to report double-digit growth in both trading volume and turnover, industry data showed Monday.

The trading volume of futures last month stood at 567.65 million lots, with a turnover of 45.42 trillion yuan (about 6.49 trillion U.S. dollars), up 36.77 percent and 55.7 percent from the same period last year, respectively, according to the China Futures Association.

In the first seven months of 2020, the trading volume of the market totaled 3.089 billion lots, an increase of 43.69 percent year on year.

— Chinas internet and related sectors have returned to double-digit growth in business revenue and research development in the first half of this year (H1) amid the COVID-19 epidemic, official data showed.

Major internet companies raked in 590.7 billion yuan in the January-June period, up 14.1 percent year on year, which is 12.6 percentage points higher than the growth rate registered in the first quarter (Q1), according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

In H1, the operating profit of the industry snapped the sharp slump in Q1, rising by 2.8 percent year on year to 52.2 billion yuan.

— China has seen a rapid increase in loans extended to clean energy, environmental protection and other green sectors in the first half of this year as the country puts more emphasis on green development, central bank data showed.

Outstanding green loans in yuan and foreign currencies reached 11.01 trillion yuan by the end of H1, up 10.8 percent from the beginning of the year, according to the Peoples Bank of China.

Outstanding loans for green infrastructure projects totaled 5.28 trillion yuan by the end of June, up 11.1 percent from the beginning of the year, the data showed.

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Taiwans manufacturing back to expansion

(Xinhua)09:34, August 04, 2020

Taiwans manufacturing activity shifted from contraction to expansion in July, according to the latest purchasing managers index (PMI) reading by the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER) on Monday.

The PMI for July increased by 6.9 percentage points month on month to 51.4 percent after staying in the contraction range for three months, the CIER press release said.

A PMI above 50 suggests expansion, while below 50 means contraction.

Among the five sub-indexes, new orders, production, and employment transformed from contraction to expansion in July, while supplier deliveries continued to expand and inventory levels remained in the contraction range, according to the CIER.

The business outlook index for the next six months climbed by 5.2 percentage points to 49.3 percent, indicating an improving sentiment among manufacturers.

However, CIER President Chang Chuang-chang said that it is too early to say that the Taiwan economy has returned to its normal track since the global economy remained gloomy.

Local manufacturers have been cautious about the future development of the economy with fears of a second wave of COVID-19 outbreaks, Chang said.

For the services sector, the non-manufacturing index (NMI) rose by 3.3 percentage points from the previous month to 57.3 percent in July, according to the CIER.

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Greater Bay Area rising as Chinas scitech front

(Xinhua)10:07, August 07, 2020

In the northern suburbs of tech city Shenzhen, a forest of tower cranes stand at the site of a cow farm that is being transformed into a national scientific engine.

Here, the Guangming Science City is taking shape. The cluster of scientific facilities and universities now lies at the heart of Chinas ambition to build the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area into a science and innovation center.

According to the local government, the Guangming Science City has launched construction of 60 projects, involving total investments of 140 billion yuan (20 billion U.S. dollars).

The Shenzhen Bay Laboratory, which focuses on biomedical research, is among the latest to settle in the tech park in June. So far, the lab has assembled 49 teams to carry out COVID-19 research, including on virus sequencing and antibodies, said Zhan Qimin, director of the lab.

Labs and basic science facilities are also prospering in other parts of Guangdong Province, helping the manufacturing heartland in south China rise as a new destination for the countrys, even the worlds, researchers.

In 2018, the China Spallation Neutron Source, the first neutron source facility in developing countries, opened in Dongguan as a super microscope to observe the microstructure of matter. A neutrino observatory is under construction in Jiangmen City, and a high-intensity heavy-ion accelerator is being built in Huizhou City.

China has been promoting joint development in the bay area, which comprises Hong Kong, Macao and nine cities in Guangdong. Last year, China issued a more specific development plan for the area. One of its major aims is to build an international innovation and technology hub.

Zhong Hai, an official in charge of Shenzhens technological sector, said the construction of basic science installations will improve the overall innovation capacity of Shenzhen, which is better known for housing Chinas many tech firms like Huawei and Tencent.

The city will enter a new stage of two-wheel drive, with continuous breakthroughs in both scientific and industrial innovation, Zhong said.

The construction of the innovation hub has already lured in many graduates from Hong Kong, which neighbors Shenzhen and boasts many universities.

Sing Chan, who launched an e-commerce platform in Shenzhen, is busy assisting Hong Kong entrepreneurs who wish to set up their businesses on the Chinese mainland.

Over half of the Hong Kong teams came to the mainland for software and engineering hardware projects, according to the young entrepreneur from Hong Kong, who has helped bring over 200 Hong Kong-invested companies and entrepreneurial teams into Shenzhen.

Peter Ding, who founded a high-tech firm on robotic applications in Shenzhen, noted the bay areas manufacturing prowess, which can help high-tech firms efficiently realize their brainchild.

They (tech firms) can rely on Shenzhen as a research and development center, assemble products in cities like Foshan and Dongguan and benefit from basic science research in Hong Kongs universities, Ding said.

Hong Kong and Macao boast advantages in internationalization, while Guangdong has a perfect industrial chain and a vast market, said Guo Wanda, executive vice president of China Development Institute. Guo urged the three places to deepen their cooperation in innovation.

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New 5G-based reading available at national library

(Xinhua)10:34, August 07, 2020

The National Library of China (NLC) is working to build a 5G technology-based new reading experience center where readers will be able to immerse themselves in books turned into panoramic videos to feel the vividness of the book contents.

The NLC on Thursday signed a cooperation agreement with the China National Publications Import Export (Group) Corporation on joint efforts in developing new reading models based on 5G technology, panoramic videos, and holographic images to lead new reading trends among readers.

At the new reading center, readers can also take a walk through the library, visit its precious collections, and enjoy leafing through the books via an online platform, according to the NLC.

Rao Quan, curator of the NLC, said the library will further work to provide an all-media, intelligent, and interactive experience for visitors in terms of reading, studying, and communication to better serve the public with high-quality cultural services.

The building of the new center is expected to be completed by the end of this year.

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Guangzhou Baiyun Airport launches facial recognition for domestic flights

(Xinhua)10:51, August 07, 2020

Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport in south Chinas Guangdong Province has launched a new facial recognition service for passengers taking domestic flights.

One ID, launched Wednesday at the airport, enables passengers to use facial recognition for self-service check-in, luggage check-in, as well as security check and boarding identification.

The service creates a database for each passenger, enabling them to use just their faces for identification throughout the boarding process, said Yang Hongyu, who heads the airports IT department.

The system extracts the passengers facial information and matches it against their itinerary for identification. It maintains safety and increases efficiency by reducing manual ID checks, Yang said.

With the COVID-19 epidemic under control, the growth of Chinas air passenger traffic has picked up. The civil aviation sector reported an average of 10,820 daily flights in June, up 14.1 percent from May.

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Chinas BeiDou navigation system helps boats evade typhoon

(Xinhua)13:57, August 05, 2020

Chinas BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) has played an indispensable part in helping fishermen cut losses and evade the strong winds and waves during typhoon season.

When typhoon Hagupit, the fourth typhoon this year, approached the coastal areas in eastern Chinas Fujian Province in early August, all the boats in Sansha Township, Xiapu County were already moored in the bay.

All of our boats have returned to the harbor thanks to the BeiDou position indicators installed, which allow us to locate the exact position of the boats in real-time and give prompt notification, said Lin Peng with the local marine and fishery enforcement brigade.

In 2019, 12,000 fishing vessels in Fujian began installing the BeiDou position indicators, and a BDS-supported system to assist with emergency response was established.

The BeiDou position indicator is non-detachable, and the built-in battery can supply power autonomously for five years and realize the real-time location of the boats even when they are in the open waters, said Ma Jianhua, director of the disaster response center of the Fujian provincial department of ocean and fisheries.

Ma added that the BDS-supported system can also help with disaster alarms, automatic identification, information release and sea state early warning, which have significantly improved the safety of fishermen at sea.

This is the first time the BeiDou position indicators were used in a typhoon, said Ma. A boat lost power at sea late at night. It would usually take at least five hours for a rescue vessel to reach the ship, but we found some boats nearby through the system. It was pulled back before the typhoon landed.

In addition, the BDS system has also helped the country fight against floods, assist in deformation monitoring, early warning and resident transfer.

Heavy rainfall brought by typhoons can easily lead to secondary disasters such as landslides and mudslides. Using the BDS system to monitor the geological environment is also an important means to reduce typhoon disasters.

At the construction site of a substation in Xiamen, a steep slope about 100 meters long and nine meters high has been posing a threat to the safety of workers.

The issue was solved by two sets of BeiDou geological disaster monitoring devices put into use in June, which provide centimeter-level displacement monitoring accuracy.

The devices can monitor geological hazards in real-time and report the exact position of any minor situation identified to best ensure the safety of on-site operators, said a staff member with the State Grid Fujian Electric Power Co., Ltd.

Such devices have been installed in some substations near the mountains in Xiamen, Longyan and other cities to guarantee stable power supply in typhoons.

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China plans to launch 2 more meteorological satellites in 2021

(Xinhua)14:14, August 05, 2020

China plans to launch two more meteorological satellites in 2021, sources with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said Wednesday.

One of the planned satellites is called Fengyun-3E (FY-3E). It will be the fifth member of the countrys Fengyun-3 series of satellites in polar orbit and the worlds first meteorological satellite in dawn-dusk orbit.

A dawn-dusk orbit is a sun-synchronous orbit in which the satellite tracks but never moves into the Earths shadow. Since the satellite is close to the shadow, the part of Earth the satellite is directly above is always at sunset or sunrise, giving the orbit its name.

As the suns light is always shining upon the satellite, it can make constant use of its solar panels. Once in orbit, the FY-3E satellite will improve the accuracy and efficiency of global numerical weather prediction, according to the company.

The other satellite is Fengyun-4B (FY-4B), which will be the second geostationary meteorological satellite of the Fengyun-4 series. China launched the FY-4A, a scientific experiment satellite, into space in December 2016. The FY-4B will mark an upgrade of Chinas meteorological satellites in geostationary orbit.

As early as 1969, China started receiving, processing and using foreign meteorological satellite data. Meanwhile, the country has been developing its own meteorological satellite system.

Over the past 50 years, Chinas meteorological services have made huge progress. So far, the country has launched a total of 17 Fengyun meteorological satellites.

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With increasing infections, Mideast states strive to stave off COVID-19 resurgence

(Xinhua)08:51, June 29, 2020

CAIRO, June 28 (Xinhua) — The death toll from the novel coronavirus in Iran hit 10,508 on Sunday after the registration of 144 more fatalities, while Saudi Arabia reported 3,989 new infections, raising the total number in the kingdom to 182,493.

In Iran, the hardest hit country in the Middle East, the overall number of the COVID-19 cases has grown to 222,669 after 2,489 new infections were added, according to Sima Sadat Lari, spokeswoman for Irans Ministry of Health and Medical Education.

So far, 183,310 patients have recovered from the virus and 2,946 remain in critical condition, said Lari.

In order to curb the increasing infections and fatalities after the partial lift of lockdown, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Sunday that wearing face masks in public places will be made mandatory from July 5 for two weeks.

With no tangible sign of slowdown in the pandemic, Saudi Arabia on Sunday confirmed 40 more deaths and 2,627 new recovered cases, increasing the death toll to 1,551 and the total recoveries to 124,755.

The Saudi health ministry revealed that the number of daily tests for COVID-19 has jumped from about 1,000 at the beginning of the outbreak to 45,000, as more than 1.5 million coronavirus tests have been conducted so far.

Amid the normalization process away from the restrictions against the spread of COVID-19, Turkey reported 1,356 new cases in the past 24 hours, raising the total number in the country to 197,239.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced that 15 more patients died from coronavirus, taking the death toll to 5,079, while 1,413 patients recovered in the past 24 hours, raising the total number of recoveries to 170,595.

Qatars Health Ministry on Sunday announced 750 new infections of COVID-19, raising the total number of confirmed cases in the Gulf state to 94,413.

Egypt reported on Sunday 1,265 new COVID-19 infections, bringing the total cases registered in the country since mid-February to 65,188, said the health ministry.

Meanwhile, 81 COVID-19 patients died from the coronavirus, raising the death toll to 2,789, while 399 more patients were completely cured, increasing the total recoveries in the North African country to 17,539, Health Ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said in a statement.

Daily infections in Egypt have been surpassing 1,000 cases since May 28, with a record 1,774 infections on June 19.

The Egyptian government has decided to resume air traffic at all airports from July 1 after more than three months of international flight suspension over the coronavirus concerns.

As the first among the Gulf countries to report COVID-19 cases, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Sunday announced 437 new COVID-19 cases, bringing the total confirmed cases in the country to 47,797.

The UAE health ministry also confirmed two more fatalities from the virus, pushing up the countrys death toll to 313.

In Kuwait, 551 new COVID-19 cases and four more deaths were reported on Sunday, raising the tally of infections to 44,942 and the death toll to 348, two days before the Gulf country will start its three-week second phase of returning to normal life.

In the second phase, public and private sectors in Kuwait will resume no more than 30 percent of their capacity, while shopping malls, financial institutions, retail shops and parks will reopen.

Iraq reported 2,140 new coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of infections to 45,402.

The Omani health ministry announced on Sunday 1,197 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, bringing the total number in the country to 38,150.

Israel reported on Sunday 334 new coronavirus cases, bringing the total number in the country to 23,755 including 6,363 active cases, the highest since May 2.

The Israeli government announced on Sunday that the eligibility for unemployment benefits for people on unpaid leave would be extended until mid-August amid a second wave of the coronavirus outbreak.

Eligibility for the grants to the 67-year-olds and above who have not yet returned to work will also be extended, according to the government.

In addition, Israel will reduce the time period between detecting a new patient and bringing all contacts to home quarantine from at least five days to a maximum of 48 hours to curb the recent rise in the COVID-19 morbidity, the prime ministers office said in a statement on Sunday.

The number of COVID-19 cases registered in Palestine has reached 2,248, including 621 recoveries and seven deaths, after 195 new infections were added on Sunday.

Hebron, the largest district in the West Bank, has become the epicenter of the new coronavirus outbreak that hit the region in mid-June, where 143 new cases were reported on Sunday.

In Iraq, the head of the Iraqi Medical Association called on Sunday for reimposing full curfew to contain the increasing daily infections with coronavirus.

Otherwise, we must accept huge loss of life, as well as the possibility of the collapse in health system and the subsequent chaos, Abdul-Amir al-Shimmary warned.

Algeria on Sunday reported 305 new cases of COVID-19, the highest single-day increase in the North African country, raising the total number of infections to 13,273, including 897 deaths and 9,373 recoveries.

A total of 175 new COVID-19 cases were confirmed in Morocco on Sunday, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the North African country to 12,052.

In Lebanon and Jordan, the number of COVID-19 cases on Sunday rose by 21 and 10 to respectively to 1,740 and 1,121.

War-torn Yemen recorded on Sunday 15 new confirmed COVID-19 cases in the provinces controlled by the government, bringing the total number to 1,118, including 302 fatalities.