According to The Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Repor
eased by the World Economic Forum, global tourism revenue contributed over 10 percent of the global GDP, but China’s domest
What apparently has shattered the confidence of the ruling
its poor performance in recent polls in three key Indian states.
One key factor that apparently sealed the fate of the BJP was prevailing anger among upper castes. So the first thing the prime
minister did was to grant 10 percent job reservation to the less well-off among the upper castes.
The BJP projected the move as a “game changer” which it claimed would win it the support of a certain section of society bu
t now finds itself on the back foot as the Congress came out with a proposal promising “minimum income guarantee” fo
r every poor villager if the party was voted to power. The idea has left the BJP leadership unnerved.
The head of the Pakistan Navy hailed the Chinese navy’s participation in the Aman 19 multinational maritime exercise during a visit to the
warship Kunlunshan on Sunday, saying that the Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean is vital to regional security.
Pakistan is holding its sixth multinational maritime naval drills, Aman 19, from Friday to Tuesday in Ka
rachi, with navies and observers from 46 countries including China, Russia and the US participating in the exercise.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy), which has participated in all
previous Aman exercises, sent two warships from the Task Group 998 for the exercise.
“The PLA Navy has always been a very big participant, we are really grateful for that,” Ch
ief of the Pakistani Naval Staff Admiral Zafar Mahmood Abbasi told the Global Times during his visit.
Vice premier urges bolder, more effective measures imp
Chinese Vice Premier Han Zheng on Friday stressed to take bolder and more
effective measures to implement the proactive fiscal policy.
Han, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Co
mmittee, made the remarks when presiding over a meeting after an inspection of the Ministry of Finance (MOF).
At the meeting, Han studied major issues, including the launch of another round of tax cu
ts and fighting the “three critical battles” against risks, poverty and pollution.
The MOF should stick to the basic tone of seeking progress while maintaining stability, promote
high-quality development and take coordinated steps to ensure steady growth, advance reform, m
ake structural adjustments, improve living standards and guard against risks, Han stressed.
He said that larger tax cuts will be helpful in improving the co
untry’s income distribution system and the tax structure and better serve China’s current macro policy.
The MOF should relieve the social insurance payment burden of firms, strengthen the manag
ement of the fiscal revenue and expenditure and create a sound policy environment for fair competition, Han said.
Han underlined that measures should be in place to effectively prevent and handle financial risks, reinforce the
monitoring of the local government debt risk and deploy more funds to facilitate winning the battles against poverty and pollution.
He said the buyers assumed the housing price in January wo
ie Yifeng, president of the Realty Association of Asia-Pacific Cities, said the sliding sales
in January were due to seasonal factors and should not be regarded as a market trend.
“The Spring Festival was the main reason,” he said. “Property developers were not passionate about selling new proj
ects during the holiday, and it was not very realistic for banks to release housing loans before or during the holiday.”
“A significant index was the registered sold property on the government’s website, but government employees were on
a break too and the statistics of sold property registered on the government’s website were not getting a timely upd
ate,” he said. “The real statistics from last December to January will gradually start to be updated in March.”
In fact, Xie predicted the market in 2019 would be better than last year, as he said the real market indicators were the rising land prices and the amount of land sold.
“The decisive factor is the government’s decision on the shantytown redevelopment policy,” he added, pointing
out that this was expected during this year’s session of the National People’s Congress in March.
Zhang Bo, chief analyst at the 58 Anjuke Institute, said apart from buyers being skeptical tow
ard the price, the weakening intention for speculation was another factor contributing to the slow sales in lower-tier cities.
China to establish national, regional medical centers by
China will set up a number of national and regional medical centers across the country by 2020, according to a working plan issued by the National Health Commission.
Regional medical centers will be established nationwide to provide patients in
different regions with quality medical treatment close to their homes, said the plan.
The country will also establish national medical centers aimed to carry out diagnosis and treatment of rare and sever
e cases of diseases of specific categories in the country and play a leading role in spreading advanced medical technologies nationwide, it said.
The plan proposes to build a four-level medical service system that covers medical insti
tutions at the national, provincial, prefectural and county levels by 2020, with national medical centers taking the lead.
Given different regions in China have big gaps in terms of medical service levels, so patients
often have to turn to hospitals far away for quality treatment, particularly those with severe and rare illnesses.
Experts believe the move is expected to better allocate medical resources in the country.
Imax shatters Chinese New Year opening box office record
Imax box offices set a new record over the Chinese New Year period starting on Feb 5, grossing 217 million yuan ($32.3 million) across its 599 theaters in China.
Imax Corporation and Imax China said in a news release on Feb 11 that the results were driven by the
strong performances of three local-language films – The Wandering Earth, Crazy Alien and Peg
asus. The sales figures marked Imax China’s best Chinese New Year performance ever, up 40 percent year-on-year.
The Wandering Earth, China’s first big-budget sci-fi film, led the pack by grossing more than
185 million yuan in Imax theaters to become the highest grossing local-language film in Imax hi
story, surpassing Mojin: The Lost Legend. Imax screenings accounted for more than 9 percent of the film’s gross ov
erall takings. The film also set new Imax records for the biggest opening week, surpassing Avengers: Infinity War, as
well as the biggest single day and best three-day performance for a local-language title.
“We are very pleased with these record-breaking Chinese New Year results, which are particularly significant when com
pared to 2018’s record performance that was up 80 percent over the previous year,” said Imax CEO Richard L. Gelfond.
Spain’s govt loses budget vote, paving way for snap election
Spain’s parliament rejected the government’s 2019 draft budget on Wednesday, pushing the country to the brink of a national election.
Sources in the government and the Socialist party of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told Reuters on Tu
esday that he would call a snap election if the draft was rejected, with April 14 or April 28 the most likely dates.
The Socialists hold less than a quarter of the seats in parliament and needed support fr
om smaller regional parties, including the Catalans, to get the budget proposal voted through.
But the Catalan parties, unhappy with the government’s refusal to consider or dis
cuss – amongst other issues – an independence referendum for their nor
theastern region, voted against it, as did the centre-right and the conservatives.
“This shows that the right wing in this country is intent on blocking social progress,” Bu
dget Minister Maria Jesus Montero told reporters, in the government’s first reaction to the vote.
More outcomes expected from trade talksVice-Premier Liu
He will hold a new round of high-level China-US economic and trade consultations with United States Trade Re
presentative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in Beijing from Thursday to Friday.
Analysts said the two sides are likely to propose weightier measures to address economic and trade differences and to broaden overall cooperation.
According to the Ministry of Commerce, based on recent talks in Washington, China and the US will eng
age in further discussions on issues of common concern. The US delegation arrives in Beijing on Monday.
China and the US have been embroiled in trade frictions for several months. The two sides are now in the midst of a 90-day tariff truce, which began on Dec 1, wh
en President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, met on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires.
Wei Jianguo, vice-chairman of the China Center for International Economic Ex
changes, said China-US trade consultations have made “a big stride forward”.
Beijing embraces first snow during lunar new year holiday
BEIJING — The wait is finally over after snow fell in Beijing Wednesday amid celebrations marking the Spring Festival, or Chinese New Year.
At about 9 am, light snow started to fall in suburban districts of Beijing, such as Yanqing
and Huairou. As of 10 am, more than 10 weather stations in the city had observed snow, a c
riterion for the municipal observatory to declare the arrival of the first snow.
This winter’s snow arrived particularly late, only fi
ve days away from becoming the latest snow on record, which happened in the winter of 1983-84.
Beijing has never had a winter without snow since the capital city started keeping weather data in 1951, according to Beijing News.
A mother and her daughter are excited to see Beijing embra
cing first snow at Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital International Airport, Feb
Completing the festival lineup is The Story of Xiaoyi, an i
chodrama composed of four major sections, i.e. Dramatic Presentation, Interactive E
