News

    The 4th Session of the 13th Anhui Provincial People’s Congress held its closing meeting in Hefei, capital of East China’s Anhui province, on Monday.

    Li Jinbin, Party chief of the province and chairman of the Standing Committee of the Anhui Provincial People’s Congress, delivered a speech at the meeting.

    Shen Suli, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the Anhui Provincial People’s Congress, chaired the closing meeting.

    Wang Qingxian was elected governor of the province at the meeting.

    Meanwhile, Wei Xiaoming was elected vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the 13th Anhui Provincial People’s Congress. Bai Jinming was elected secretary general of the Standing Committee of the 13th Anhui Provincial People’s Congress. Wang Yingchun, Zhao Xinqun, Gao Li and Guo Decheng were elected members of the Standing Committee of the 13th Anhui Provincial People’s Congress. Chen Wu was elected chief procurator of the Anhui Provincial People’s Procuratorate.

    The provincial legislature approved a resolution on the annual government work report, a resolution on the province’s 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives through the Year 2035, a resolution on the province’s implementation of the annual plan on economic and social development in 2020 and a draft plan for 2021, and a resolution on the implementation of the budgets in 2020 and the draft budgets for 2021.

    
Resolutions on the work reports of the standing committee of the legislature, the Anhui Provincial High People’s Court, and the Anhui Provincial People’s Procuratorate were also passed at the closing meeting.

It’s learned from the Municipal Housing and Urban-Rural Development Bureau that 187 old urban communities in Wuhu City , covering 29,342 households with a construction area of 2.8883 million square meters, will be renovated this year. The number of to-be-renovated old communities in the city ranks first in Anhui province, and the renovation area as well as the number of households involved rank second in the province.

The renovation of old communities is a pro-people project that delivers real benefits to them. From 2019 to 2021, the city plans to renovate about 2,600 old  communities, including those that affect residents’ daily lives or those residents of which have strong willingness to renovate, such as communities that have been built for a long time with insufficient supporting facilities, poor living surroundings and management, etc. We will effectively improve outdated facilities and equipment, incomplete functional supporting facilities and poor living surroundings in old communities. In the process of renovation, we do our utmost to implement the project and mobilize the masses to actively support us, sticking to the principle of all for the masses and relying on the masses. For example, we publicize the preliminary design plan for the renovation of old communities, solicit opinions from different people, and invite experts to review to improve the renovation plan.

The key to building up weak links concerning the functions of old communities lies in the post-project management and maintenance. On the one hand, we have clearly defined the responsibilities of various departments, jointly promoted the renovation of old urban communities into plots, carried out a thorough registration of illegal car parking, occupation, piling of trash and construction in those communities, and cleared the “obstacles” in the process of renovating old communities. On the other hand, we implement the Four-sphere Integrated Management Mechanism involving the Communist Party organizations in communities, neighborhood committees, proprietors’ committees and property service enterprises, set up property mediation centers, actively promote the “red property” management, allow the majority of proprietors to vigorously participate in community management, and ensure the effectiveness of the renovation of old communities.

Translated by Wang Mengxiao from Foreign Affairs Office of Wuhu Municipal People’s Government

    BEIJING — China has rolled out a series of guidelines to ensure the well-being of people who had been asked to avoid traveling during the upcoming Spring Festival holiday.

    All residents in areas at high risk of COVID-19 shall stay at their current residing localities to prevent spreading the epidemic, said a recent circular released by the general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council.

    Travel from medium-risk areas will need permission from the local epidemic prevention and control authorities. Those living in low-risk areas shall be advised to avoid traveling unless necessary, the circular said.

    According to the circular, all localities, especially large and medium-sized cities, are asked to guarantee stable supplies of necessities and energy. It demanded smooth logistics and transport services to meet the needs for shopping, recreation, and entertainment of people who stay where they work during the holiday.

    Efforts should ensure that those who work during the holiday enjoy due overtime payments and rest under the relevant laws, it added.

    The Spring Festival, or the Chinese Lunar New Year, falls on Feb 12 this year.

    Since more than a billion trips are expected to be made by travelers, the Spring Festival travel rush undoubtedly poses a challenge to the country’s prevention and control work, since it may be possible for people who are infected with the novel coronavirus but not showing symptoms to infect others when traveling.

    This is especially true as many migrant workers will be returning to their home villages in rural areas. With the arrival of winter, there has been an uptick in the number of infections. Most of these have been in rural areas in North and Northeast China where the temperatures are much lower than in South China.

    Requiring those returning to their home villages to be tested for the virus would effectively reduce the risk of the epidemic entering the countryside and ensure that everyone can enjoy a healthy and safe Spring Festival.

    That is why an official of the National Health Commission said at a news conference on Wednesday that all those who are traveling to rural areas during the Spring Festival travel period must have a valid certificate for a negative nucleic acid test result.

    So whether to go home or not has become a pressing question for migrant workers.

    Spring Festival trips are normally concentrated a week before and after the Lunar New Year, which falls on Feb 12 this year. Hospitals will likely be crowded with would-be travelers a week before the start and end of this two week period, since a test result is valid only for seven days.

    Of course, it would be safer and make the prevention and control work easier if the majority of rural migrant workers elected to stay where they work for the festival.

    But if some in low-risk areas have a plan to go back to their home villages where no infections have been reported for months, perhaps it would be possible for tests to be organized for them at their places of work, as this would ease the pressure on testing stations. The charge for a test should also be as low as possible.

    For those who choose to stay where they work for the festival, local governments may consider giving them subsidies or help arrange meals, which may possibly prompt more to stay in the places where they work rather than traveling back to their home villages.

    It is important to prevent the virus from being spread in rural areas. But it is also no less important to take into consideration the difficulties workers from rural areas might face if they stay in the places where they work for the festival.

Reporters learned that recently, China Data Pay and Chinafund jointly released the “the ranking of total market capitalization of listed companies in mainland in 2020.” Among them, Wuhu ranked 19^th on the list, which was among the top 20.

The stock market is a barometer of economy. The number, size and competitiveness of listed companies reflect the comprehensive competitiveness of cities to a certain extent. According to statistics, the total market value of listed companies on the Chinese mainland reached 116 trillion yuan by the end of 2020, up nearly 29 trillion yuan from the end of 2019.

Data showed that 659 listed companies in Beijing, excluding Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, had a total market value of 27.18 trillion yuan at the end of 2020, topping the list for a second year.

Wuhu, with a total market value of 882.3 billion yuan, ranks 19th in China, 7th in the Yangtze River Delta and 1st in the whole province.

In addition, China Data Pay also released the “Ranking of Listed Companies in Second and Third Tier Cities by Market Value (2020)”. Data show that the total market value of listed companies in Wuhu at the end of 2020 is 882.3 billion yuan, ranking the fifth in the market value list of second and third-tier cities. Renhuai in Guizhou province, which still has only one listed company, Kweichow Moutai, took the title again.

Translated by Yuan Mengwen from Foreign Affairs Office of Wuhu Municipal People’s Government

The reporter learned from the municipal transportation department that in 2020, Wuhu City will complete the rural road surface extension project of 1265 kilometers, basically realizing the connection between villages and towns, and the initial formation of the rural road network. 317 kilometers of rural road maintenance projects and 94 kilometers of rural road safety and life protection projects have been completed.

During the “13th Five-Year Plan” period, transportation department in Wuhu took rural road construction as an important work to promote rural revitalization and fight against poverty. In the past five years, 2.46 billion yuan has been invested in the city’s rural roads, of which 455 million being invested by municipal finance. A total of 2,071.29 kilometers of rural roads have been opened and 2,057.99 kilometers have been extended. 981.1 kilometers of major and medium maintenance projects have been carried out and 1,235.29 kilometers of county and township roads have been protected. 216.19 kilometers of village roads have been protected and six dangerous bridges have been renovated.

Through the construction of the rural road project and the expansion and extension project, Wuhu has basically realized the hardening of  road for villagers, the basic establishment of road length system, constant improvement of management level and the increasing reasonability of rural road network. Last year, the city was successfully listed as a national pilot city for deepening the reform of rural road management and maintenance system.

Translated by Yuan Mengwen from Foreign Affairs Office of Wuhu Municipal People’s Government

Jiang Xiaochong, from Shangshui village in the Wanzhi district of Wuhu, Anhui province, squatted beside a pond in front of his house, washing vegetables for his lunch just as he did when he was a child.

“It’s not something I could have imagined doing again years ago, since the pond had become severely polluted and smelly,” he said.

Wanzhi literally means “small land in the middle of the estuary”.Located near the junction of the Yangtze and Qingyi rivers, the district is full of water resources.

But this village in inland Anhui, intersected with rivers and scattered with ponds, has seen its waters deteriorate due to increasing pollution from decades of wanton manufacturing and sprawling livestock.

For example, in 2015, the majority of surface water was lowered to Grade IV, the second lowest in China’s five-tier water quality evaluation system, data from the local water resource authority showed.

This destroyed the villagers’ sweet memories about their hometown, Jiang said, and the local government has been striving to improve the rural environment and people’s livelihood since 2015.

A report by the Wanzhi government showed that the district’s investment in pollution prevention projects reached 700 million yuan ($108 million) last year, about 3.6 percent of its GDP.

The government has invested 300 million yuan to collect and process garbage and has issued policies requiring livestock to be raised on qualified farms, meaning the pollutants from the farms have to meet the requirements, according to Ding Meijian, deputy director of the district’s water resource bureau.

In 2019, 185 unqualified livestock farms were closed, further cutting emissions, the report showed.

“Now, the proportion of surface water quality at and lower than Grade IV has been reduced to less than 20 percent,” Ding said.

With the environment improving, Taoxin township, which governs Shangshui, has become more attractive – particularly its lotus plants, which have been blooming in its clean rivers and ponds since 2017.

In 2019, over 500,000 tourists visited the township, bringing in over 80 million yuan, the township government said.

In addition to the lotus, the well-preserved original residences in the township, especially in Huaqiao village, have grown more popular as well.

“The old residences are a living art. They can tell us a lot of stories of how the villagers live,” said Song Yu, a rural development expert in Wuhu, adding that a team of young artists are now protecting the village’s original residences.

After studying the stories of the village and its residents, the artists have charted a plan for Huaqiao’s tourism development, according to Song.

A former teacher from the Wuhu-based Anhui Normal University, he is now in charge of the rural revitalization business sector in Dingfeng Education, a local art training school.

He noted that Wanzhi district has more interest in maintaining the villages’ traditional lifestyles while improving the environment.

When the school opened in Yingang village in 2006, there was a large group of manufacturing plants behind the campus.

In the 1980s, shortly after the country initiated the reform and opening-up process, Yingang villagers started to run manufacturing businesses, so the village soon emerged as one of the richest in Wanzhi district, which had been Wuhu county until earlier last year.

“As the firms developed, pollution became a problem,” said Xia Yunlong, an executive of the school.

“By 2015, the local government had closed the firms that failed to tackle the pollution problem and relocated others to the city’s modernized industrial development areas,” Xia said.

As a result, the vacant plants were left for the government’s disposal, which triggered debates.

The school’s proposal to build the area into a hub of art-related startups was supported by the government, Xia said.

The school renovated the plants into classrooms, conference venues and offices for startups, making the area a popular site for tourists, he said.

To date, 126 firms have been attracted to or founded in the area, which is named Yingang Art Creation Town. Their main business includes art training and design.

“Operating revenue of the firms in 2020 had reached more than 400 million yuan by the end of November,” said Xia, adding that many of the startups have being engaged in reshaping the local villages’ economy.

“Take Huaqiao village as an example. We tell the villagers to do farming in a more ecological way to improve their products’ quality, and we design the brands and packages for the products,” Song said.

He said the firms also help to promote the products through online and offline channels and attract tourists to the village with integrated services including catering and homestay.

    Following the opening of five intercity bus lines to counties (city) and districts, Wuhu city has added four more intercity bus lines to counties (city) and districts by the end of 2020, so as to further meet the needs of urban and rural residents for fast travel.

    The reporter learned from the municipal transportation department that before December 30 last year, the city opened four bus lines to Wanzhi District, Fanchang District, Nanling County and Wuwei City, including K501, K503, K505 and K506, all of which were green and environmentally friendly pure electric buses. Compared with the existing intercity buses, which stop at about 40 stations on average, the additional bus stops along the route are limited to 10, which further shortens the operation time of a single trip, improves the vehicle utilization rate, and better meets the diversified travel demands of passengers. The reporter also learned that the favorable measure for people has been actively planned to promote the exemption of tolls for intercity buses travelling on the Wuhu Yangtze River Bridge. After the implementation of this measure, the bus fares between Wuwei and the downtown area of Wuhu will be greatly reduced, bringing more convenience and benefits to people.

    



It is reported that last year, Wuhu accelerated the transformation of bus lines from city to counties (city) and districts into public transport, promoted the rapid connection with the city-wide public transport network, and comprehensively improved the level of integrated development of urban and rural public transport. According to statistics, since the opening of intercity bus lines in Wuhu on September 29 last year, 103 buses have been put into operation on a daily basis, carrying 460,000 passengers per month and 15,000 passengers per day. The average bus fare is 3 yuan per person, which is significantly lower than that of 8 yuan per person in the same period last year. The monthly travel expenses for the citizens have been cut by 2.3 million yuan in total, which greatly reduces the travel cost of the masses.

Translated by Wang Mengxiao from Foreign Affairs Office of Wuhu Municipal People’s Government

BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) — China’s State Council joint prevention and control mechanism against COVID-19 has ordered the strict inspection of vaccine quality, safety and smooth cold-chain transportation, as well as timely and accurate delivery of vaccines, as the country’s first self-developed vaccine got market approval with the vaccination campaign to be carried out nationwide gradually.

China has always attached great importance to the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. The mechanism has also emphasized the importance of providing medical support and service. It especially applies to timely treatment and reporting of adverse reactions during the vaccination drive.

The National Medical Products Administration also established a traceability information system for the management of approved vaccines.

China approved the emergency use of COVID-19 vaccines in June, targeting groups with high risks of infection. By the end of November, more than 1.5 million doses of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines had been distributed for emergency use, and 60,000 vaccinated people have traveled abroad to high-risk regions, with no severe adverse reactions reported.

On Dec. 15, China officially launched a vaccination program for this winter-spring period targeting a number of key groups, including those engaged in handling imported cold-chain products, customs officers, medical workers and people working in public transport and fresh markets. The COVID-19 vaccines will be provided free of charge to all Chinese people.

The number of vaccination doses among the key groups has exceeded 3 million. “The 3 million vaccine doses, plus the previous 1.5 million doses, fully prove that Chinese vaccines are safe,” said Zeng Yixin, deputy head of the National Health Commission.

The most common adverse reaction in the inoculation was pain at the injection site, with less than 0.1 percent cases of mild fever. About two cases per million encountered slightly serious adverse reactions such as anaphylaxis. All the reactions are controllable and have been well treated in a timely manner.

China granted conditional marketing authorization for the first COVID-19 vaccine in December. The inactivated vaccine developed by China National Biotec Group (CNBG) affiliated with Sinopharm showed 79.34 percent efficacy against COVID-19, according to the interim results of the phase-3 clinical trials.

Using killed pathogenic microorganisms to enhance the immunogenicity, inactivated vaccines have advantages of mature production process, controllable quality standards and wide protection range, according to Wang Junzhi, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

China has laid a solid foundation for research into inactivated vaccines in recent years. Inactivated vaccines have been widely used to fight hepatitis A, influenza, hand-foot-and-mouth disease and poliomyelitis.

Authoritative studies show that Chinese-made inactivated vaccines can be more easily stored and delivered via the current cold-chain system, indicating greater accessibility without extra delivery cost, according to Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian.

Some other vaccines approved around the world have stricter cold chain requirements. For example, the COVID-19 vaccine developed by U.S. company Pfizer and German company BioNTech has to be stored at a temperature of minus 70 degrees Celcius.

China has adopted five technological approaches in developing COVID-19 vaccines, of which five are undergoing phase-3 clinical trials.

The five vaccines in phase-3 clinical trials include two inactivated vaccines developed by the CNBG, an inactivated vaccine developed by Sinovac Biotech, an adenovirus vector vaccine developed by the Academy of Military Sciences and CanSino Biologics Inc., and a recombinant sub-unit vaccine jointly developed by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and the Institute of Microbiology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Some countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, have approved the Chinese inactivated vaccine registration according to the World Health Organization technical standards. Egypt licensed China’s inactivated COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use on Saturday. Countries, including Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, Chile and Malaysia, have ordered vaccines developed by Sinovac Biotech.

“China will vaccinate the eligible population as widely as possible, and gradually build an immune barrier in the whole population to control the epidemic,” said Zeng. He added that 60 or even 70 percent of the vaccination rate is needed to establish universal protection.

Fiscal spending likely to focus more on public services to improve livelihoods

Consumption is expected to become a major driving force for China’s economic growth in 2021 with more supportive policies in place, while the country’s fiscal spending is likely to focus more heavily on public services to improve livelihoods, particularly in education, health and elderly care, to keep the economy stable and within a proper range, experts said.

A report issued on Sunday by the Academic Center for Chinese Economic Practice and Thinking at Tsinghua University forecast that China’s GDP is expected to expand by 2.1 percent year-on-year in 2020, with fourth-quarter growth of 5.5 percent.

It predicted that the economy is likely to grow by 8 to 9 percent in 2021 if the COVID-19 pandemic situation continues to taper off, and by about 5 percent if the pandemic makes a severe comeback during the winter and spring.

“Inadequate demand and weak consumption are the major issues facing China’s growth at the moment. Robust policy support should be put in place to boost effective demand, particularly in consumer activities,” Li Daokui, a professor and dean of the Tsinghua think tank, said on Sunday at the release of the report.

In particular, Li said future policy steps should focus more on people’s pursuit of better livelihoods and their demand for smoother, more facilitated migration between urban and rural areas with certain institutional hurdles gradually being phased out. Internet business and the digital economy should develop with more targeted regulatory approaches.

“Internet business and the digital economy have been a major contributor to China’s growth, particularly during the pandemic outbreak, as they have facilitated our lives and boosted consumption,” Li said. “Healthy growth of these businesses is also crucial in adding to China’s competitive edge in emerging industries.”

Well-calibrated regulatory approaches should be stepped up in pursuit of a more effective oversight for the healthy growth of these businesses, said Wu Xiaoqiu, a senior economist at Renmin University of China.

China will keep its economic fundamentals within a proper range, and the country’s proactive fiscal policy will be maintained and introduced in a more effective and sustainable manner, according to the Central Economic Work Conference, which was held from Dec 16 to 18 in Beijing.

Both the deficit-to-GDP ratio and growth of the quota of special local government debt are likely to decline in 2021, yet readjustment and optimization of the fiscal spending structure can be anticipated, according to the report.

Li Keaobo, a senior researcher at the Tsinghua think tank, added that quicker issuance and allocation of next year’s special local government bonds can be expected, while the requirement for the profitability of investment using funds released from these bonds will be raised.

This year, China has set its target for the deficit-to-GDP ratio at over 3.6 percent, up from 2.8 percent a year ago, and the local government bond issuance quota at 3.75 trillion yuan ($573.4 million).

Zhang Bin, a senior fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of World Economics and Politics, suggested on Sunday in a separate interview that efforts in building a stronger social safety net for low-income residents, as well as education and healthcare, should carry more weight in a refined fiscal spending structure to make it more effective and bring greater benefits.

Fairer income distribution is needed to ensure economic expansion brings benefits to everyone, Zhang said, adding that more efforts are required on public services and social security.

Zhu Ning, deputy dean and professor of finance at the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, summarized fiscal spending in these areas as “new spending on livelihoods”, which he believes is crucial for China to achieve high-quality growth in the years to come.

“Such spending closely relates to core areas of livelihood, and will reduce people’s worries over medical care and education and shore up their confidence in spending,” Zhu said. “On the other hand, these areas have strong and constant demand from the public, and will make our fiscal spending more effective.”

As the Central Economic Work Conference pledged to maintain policy support for the economy with no sudden shift in policies, experts believe that some gradual winding down in 2021 of China’s easing measures introduced since the start of the COVID-19 situation can be possible.

Zhu said he believes that efforts in tax and fee cuts, particularly for smaller firms, will be continued as part of a proactive and effective fiscal policy.

The National Bureau of Statistics announced on Sunday that in the first 11 months of the year, profits of major industrial firms expanded 2.4 percent year-on-year to more than 5.74 trillion yuan, up 1.7 percentage points from the first 10 months.

“Such growth, though mild, is hard won as demand for bulk commodities remains weak worldwide. Robust growth of major industrial sectors such as petrochemicals and steel requires effectively boosting domestic demand and consumption. Expanding domestic demand will become increasingly important for China’s growth with the possible decline in our exports of medical supplies,” said Li Keaobo from the Tsinghua think tank.