Leading S&T contributors rewarded,
我市重奖产业科技功臣
Photo by Yao Fan



On January 11, local authorities held the Scientific Education and Talents' Work and Leading Science & Technology Contributors Commendatory Rally, where each of the 10 people who had made the most contributions received a reward of RMB 150,000.

 

 

Economics

Shares in local companies raise pending cross-strait charter flights
包机消息令厦板块上扬
The progress of talks on direct flights across the Taiwan Strait around the Spring Festival holiday has been grabbing headlines. As a result, shares in local companies listed in the stock market also have attracted intense attention and have been experiencing considerable hikes since January 10.

Spring Festival price inspection commences
春节物价检查全面启动
On the morning of January 11, the city's commodity inspection authority commenced a blanket inspection of commodity prices at all major marts and tourist attractions in the city, ushering in the citywide commodity price inspection.

Hualian Emporium to capture a slice of appliance market
华联商厦要分家电一杯羹
Management of Hualian Emporium recently revealed its plan to mount a comeback to capture a slice of the cutthroat home appliance market.

Local vegetable exports exceed USD 100 mil.
蔬菜出口超过1亿美元
The total value of vegetable exports of local producers and processors in 2004 have broken the USD 100 million mark for the first time, with export values and weight topping USD 110 million and 110,000 tons respectively, surging 26% and 18.8% respectively compared to 2003.

Prices of imported fruits expected to drop
进口水果价格有望下降
Experts predict that as the scheme to cut tariffs for the China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone comes into full swing, prices of imported fruits are expected to drop.

 

 

Society

Xiamen to launch "511 Experts Program"
"511专家工程"将启动
Local authorities are about to launch the "511 Experts Program", under which strong efforts will be made to nurture 50 nationally and internationally advanced academic leaders with domestic and international recognition, 100 provincially advanced academic and technical leaders, and 1,000 top talents who play key roles in all sectors.

Local residents get 2nd-generation identity cards
第二代身份证开始换发
On the morning of January 13, Xiamen's first 2nd-generation identity card was issued to a citizen at a ceremony in the square before the city's Culture Palace. Fujian Province's ceremony of the inaugural issuance of 2nd-generation identity cards took place simultaneously in Xiamen and Sanming on January 13, signifying the advent of the 2nd-generation identity cards for local citizens.

Migrant workers in for happy Lunar New Year
让农民工欢喜回家过年
With the upcoming Chinese lunar new year, the labor authority in Haicang District has doubled its efforts in prompting businesses to pay wages owed to migrant workers in order to allow them to have a happy lunar new year. Such efforts have produced good results; as of January 6, as many as 9,609 migrant workers have received RMB 7.17 million in back wages.

Xiamen University makes world-class achievement
厦大一成果达国际先进水平
The research achievement of "Virtual Eyes for Chinese People and Their Application" by a team supervised by Prof. Wang Boliang of Xiamen University has recently passed the assessment by an expert panel which concludes that this particular research achievement relating to virtual eyes for Chinese people is world class overall.

 

 

Education

Registration for 2005 college entrance exam to start
2005年高考报名即将开始
The registration of students who wish to take the 2005 College Entrance Examination will soon begin. Fresh high school graduates are required to collectively register through their respective high schools before February 1. Potential examinees who are not full-time students can register between February 1-5.

Xiamen to build security system for disadvantaged students
厦率先建贫困生保障制
Xiamen will be the first city in Fujian Province to implement the "Security System for Basic School Expenses for Disadvantaged Students in the Compulsory Education Phase", under which these students will receive subsidies from municipal finances.

 

 

Transport

Railway passengers to reach 1.25 mil.
火车站预计春运旅客125万
The 2005 Lunar New Year transportation period will officially start on January 25. Xiamen Railway Station estimates that it will handle a total of 1.25 million incoming and outgoing passengers during this period, including 580,000 outgoing passengers, up 5% compared with the last Lunar New Year period. The peak of the transportation period will be from January 29 to February 6.

Schedule of Xiamen-Kinmen, Mawei-Matzu voyages fixed
"两门""两马"航班排定
The 2005 Xiamen-Kinmen and Mawei-Matzu Spring Festival Voyages Schedule has been fixed, covering the period of January 25 to March 5.

 

 

City News
Edited by Lily

Beijing 北京

New city planning
京城要变样
From 2004 to 2020, the municipality will change the current "one center" layout model to a "multi-center" one, which means that several more city centers with different functions will be built to form an urban structure that features a center as well as new satellite cities and townships.
Districts including the Zhongguancun high-tech park core district, the Olympics center district and the central business district will become new key city function centers.
To date, a total of eleven new satellite cities have been set. A key breakthrough in the plan is that it integrates the development of urban and rural areas and regional development. The city will continue to develop along the traditional south-north axis and the east-west axis along Chang'an Avenue to safeguard the functions of Beijing as the national capital and cultural center.

Doctors under protection: scheme launched
医生医疗责任险
A growing number of fights between doctors and patients has led to calls for an insurance scheme to cover doctors in Beijing's hospitals.
The conflicts usually spring from patients alleging doctor malpractice.
The government is pressing ahead with a scheme which would cover 100,000 doctors in all public-funded and non-profit hospitals in the capital city. In the program, the insurance company will be responsible for not only the malpractice of the doctors, but also the unsatisfactory service and administration of hospitals.

Beijing tackles heating shortfalls
调低室温节省暖气
The municipal government took the lead in lowering office temperatures in an effort to save heat, after reported shortages of energy this winter. People in all walks of life are called to cut back on heat use to save resources. Calls are being issued to suspend natural gas supplies to some industrial enterprises, buses running on natural gas, large-scale boilers, the city's outskirts and some of the public sites in order to control energy use.
Stores, hotels and office buildings are also included.
A cold front has dominated the city for almost 20 days and has posed a great challenge to the city's heating system.

Shanghai 上海

Training for mentally-handicapped people given priority
优先培训弱智群体
The municipal government has listed training of mentally-handicapped residents as one of its top ten projects for 2005 and will be the first local government program to care for this group of people.
According to the plan, 10,000 people, aged between 18 and 35, will be chosen from the 70,000 mentally-handicapped people in Shanghai. Those chosen will attend training in rehabilitation and labor skills, which are designed to improve their living skills and capability to adapt to the social environment.

Asia's largest bus station to debut
亚洲最大的公交站亮相
Asia's largest long-distance bus station will open in Shanghai on January 25.
It will be a landmark building in the city thanks to its top class design, including a three-floor parking lot with an area of 36,000 square meters and a 5,000- square-meter lounge able to seat 3,000 passengers. The station is equipped with intelligent networks for ticket selling, logistics and bus arranging.
With the extension of freeways in China, the number of passengers choosing long-distance bus for travel is increasing at an annual rate of ten percent.

Richest farmers in China
中国最富的农民
Farmers in Shanghai became the richest in China in 2004 thanks to their fast-growing incomes. The per capita annual income amounted to 7,300 yuan (880 US dollars) last year, which marks a year-on-year increase of ten percent; the highest in the past seven years.
A large part of the income came from the social security system instituted in rural areas.
They also receive a 370-yuan (about 45 US dollars) pension every month.
Shanghai has established a systematic training program and 1.8 million farmers are now working in non-agricultural business.

Easier life for people on the move
试行网上护照延期
Foreigners seeking to renew visas or residence permits will be able to do so online under a trial starting in April.
Chinese people applying for a second time visa to visit Hong Kong or Macau and Taiwanese seeking visas to visit the mainland will also be able to use the service at www.police.sh.cn.
The trial is part of 12 new measures that the Shanghai Public Security Bureau has announced.
The measures involve the police department, the fire control bureau, the traffic department and the entry-exit administration.

GuangZhou 广州

Guangdong lifts ban on migrant job seekers
取消进城务工时限
Migrant workers can now seek work in Guangdong Province immediately after Chinese Lunar New Year, overturning a decade-long ban stopping a traditional influx of people in the month following Spring Festival.
Widely known as the "six disallowables", a 1995 decree forbade the recruitment of workers from other provinces during the post-holiday period to control a huge inflow that strained facilities such as transport.
This year, however, the province is worried about labour shortages, so the Guangdong Provincial Labour and Social Security Bureau lifted the ban.

Rising income for farmers
农民收入增加
The per capita income of farmers reached 6,600 yuan (798 US dollars) last year, marking the greatest growth rate since 1997. The city's agricultural output value rose by 6.6 percent year on year to hit 20 billion yuan (2.41 billion US dollars) last year.
The fast urbanization and readjustment of traditional agricultural operations have resulted in absorbing a large number of excess rural laborers. Last year, the city government helped 50,000 farmers find non-agricultural jobs through training on practical skills.

Zoo tiger cub attacks man
虎仔袭人
A man who wanted a picture taken with a tiger cub at the Guangzhou Zoo got more than he bargained for.
The man, his wife and a two-year-old son paid to have a picture taken with a tiger cub. When they entered the cage, a cub rushed at him, clamping its jaws on his upper left leg for almost a minute. Staff rushed in to pinch the cub's nose, but it refused to let go. It finally let go after staff members hit it on the nose with a training club.
The wife said that perhaps the camouflage coat her husband wore had irritated the five-month-old cub.

Chongqing 重庆

Long queues for train tickets
早排长队等车票
Long queues are lining up now in front of the ticket office of the Chongqing Railway Station. Among the ticket buyers were a lot of farmer workers, who chose to go back home earlier from work to avoid taking an overcrowded train during the spring holiday rush as they had in the previous years.

Wushan Yangtze River Bridge opened to traffic
巫山长江大桥通车
The Wushan Yangtze River Bridge opened to traffic on January 8, which is the only arch bridge over the Yangtze River. The bridge, 612.2 meters long with the longest length span of 492 meters, cost 196 million yuan to build.

Hong Kong 香港

More emergency relief for tsunami victims
为海啸受难者提供更多援助
The Hong Kong government has approved a grant of 3.5 million Hong Kong dollars (449,000 US dollars) for World Vision Hong Kong to provide emergency relief to tsunami victims in Indonesia.
To ensure the money is used for the designated purposes, Hong Kong's Disaster Relief Fund Advisory Committee will ask the organizations to submit evaluation reports and audited accounts on the use of the grant after the relief projects have been completed.

Benefit more from closer ties with mainland
受益与内地紧密联系
The implementation of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement (CEPA) has brought immediate benefit to Hong Kong's economy, and more benefits from CEPA are expected to come.
Delivering the policy address for 2005, Tung Chee Hwa said that even though it was founded only a year ago, CEPA has helped foster economic growth in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong will actively participate in the development of the Pan-Pearl River Delta and foster bilateral cooperation with other mainland provinces and cities. Tung also said Hong Kong should seize the opportunities arising from the "going global" strategy for mainland enterprises.

Taipei 台北

Shanghai airlines ready for direct flights to Taiwan
沪台春节直航开通
Shanghai-based airlines including China Eastern Airlines have made preparations for direct flights to Taiwan Province during the Spring Festival period.
In the last few years, Taiwan authorities have granted sole permission to Taiwan carriers to fly Taiwan businessmen in the shuttle trip between mainland cities and Taiwan.
This year, about 400,000 Taiwan businesspeople and their relatives are expected to travel to Shanghai and the neighboring areas for the traditional holiday.

Taiwan opens doors to Kiwi potato growers
新西兰马铃薯进入台湾市场
Taiwan has finally opened its doors to New Zealand spuds after long-winded talks with the New Zealand Vegetable and Potato Growers' Federation. Gaining access into the Taiwan market was immensely satisfying after the negotiations were resolved through compromise. Taiwan had been concerned about protecting both its biosecurity and farmers from imported produce. Meanwhile, potato consumption in Taiwan has risen 16 per cent over the past four years, with locals tending to eat more western food in recent times.