IMF FEARS WORST RECESSION SINCE 1930S

With the International Monetary Fund predicting on Tuesday the worst global downturn since the 1930s, China has deployed an additional policy response to address the slowdown caused by the novel coronavirus pandemic and facilitate economic recovery through incentivizing bank lending and stabilizing corporate hiring.

A few hours after the IMF revised its projection on China's economic growth outlook−to 1.2 percent GDP growth this year, before a strong rebound up to 9.2 percent in 2021−the nation's central bank cut a key lending rate to a record low and injected large amounts of liquidity into the financial sector on Wednesday.

The IMF said the global economy is projected to contract by 3 percent this year, and the COVID-19 pandemic would send global growth into its deepest recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

"The Great Lockdown", as the IMF called the economic downturn, could weaken global demand and depress exports, adding risks to otherwise recovering Chinese business activities. It will require stronger monetary and fiscal action to minimize persistent problems that could emerge from subdued investment and job losses in this severe downturn, economists said.

Blunting the impact of the severe shock will require a surge of government debt, which is the key funding source of fiscal stimulus, and an optimized debt management system should be put in place to prevent potential financial risks during the recovery phase, said Li Yang, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences' National Institution for Finance and Development.

"Interest rates should be cut quickly, with an increase of money and credit supply. As central banks worldwide are taking aggressive monetary easing, there is no need for China to hold still," Li said.

China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, cut the one-year medium-term lending facility rate−a base to determine the new lending benchmark called the loan prime rate, by 0.2 percentage point to 2.95 percent. The drop was the largest within four years, and the new MLF rate hit the lowest level since its introduction in 2014.

Financial analysts expect a lower loan prime rate, down by the same degree, to be reported on Monday, to further ease lending costs of corporate borrowers, especially to support smaller businesses under pressure.

The PBOC injected 100 billion yuan ($14.16 billion) of liquidity through the MLF and released about 200 billion yuan in long-term funds into the interbank market through the targeted cut of some small and medium-sized depositary institutions' reserve requirement ratios on Wednesday.

HIGH-SPEED RAIL FIRM SEES GROWTH IN REVENUE, PROFIT

Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway Co Ltd, the operator of the high-speed railway between Beijing and Shanghai, released its first annual report on April 15 after listing, showing growth both in revenue and profit.

The operator gained revenue of 32.94 billion yuan ($4.65 billion) in 2019, an increase of 5.72 percent over the previous year, and its net profit attributable to shareholders registered a year-on-year increase of 16.48 percent to 11.94 billion yuan. Total operating costs reached 17.13 billion yuan, down 2.47 percent from the previous year.

The whole Beijing-Shanghai high speed railway line handled 215 million passengers last year, an increase of 10.1 percent year-on-year, accounting for 6 percent of the total number of passengers carried by the country's railway.

Trains operated by Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway Co Ltd handled 53.33 million passengers in 2019, down 1.21 percent from the previous year's 53.98 million, according to its annual report.

Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Co Ltd went public on Jan 16 this year on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The company, founded in 2007, had reported sustained profitability for five consecutive years since 2014, according to national railway operator China State Railway Group Co Ltd, the parent of Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Railway's controlling shareholder China Railway Investment Co Ltd, as per a previous China Daily report.

TOP OFFICIAL WARNS OF HK AS 'WEAK LINK'

Hong Kong must not become a weak link in national security, Luo Huining, the central government's top official in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, said on Wednesday.

There remains room for improvement in the mechanism for maintaining national security in Hong Kong, and this has resulted in a relatively low awareness of the importance of national security among its people since Hong Kong's return to the motherland 23 years ago, he said.

"This weak link would be fatal to the nation's security at a critical moment," Luo said.

He said Hong Kong should enact, amend and activate laws and law enforcement mechanism related to national security as soon as possible. Otherwise, he said, there is a risk of the city becoming a potential risk to national security.

The director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region made the remarks in a video address as the city held a series of online activities to mark the fifth National Security Education Day, including a writing contest, quizzes and themed talks featuring video speeches by a number of government officials and prestigious civic leaders.

CIVIL AVIATION SECTOR RISES TO CHALLENGE OF PANDEMIC

China's civil aviation sector has taken a proactive approach to transporting medical personnel and emergency supplies to aid the global fight against the novel coronavirus, a senior aviation official said.

Sun Shaohua, deputy head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China's operation monitoring center, said the administration has activated guarantee mechanisms to arrange extra flights and organize chartered flights to send medical experts and materials to countries hit hard by the novel coronavirus pneumonia pandemic.

The civil aviation authorities had carried out 575 such flights by Tuesday, Sun said. Those flights ferried 134 medical experts and workers and 9,544 metric tons of epidemic prevention and control supplies to more than 60 countries, including the United States, Iran, Pakistan, Italy, Japan and South Korea, he said.

On April 5, the administration arranged for a chartered flight to transport 37.6 tons of medical supplies to 18 countries in central and western Africa that desperately need medical equipment to deal with increasing caseloads, Sun said.

"The administration will send two flights operated by Air China on Thursday to take medical teams and materials to Ethiopia and Burkina Faso," he added.

Sun said the administration had also adopted a number of measures to bring Chinese studying or living abroad back home, while at the same time taking steps to stop the importation of novel coronavirus cases.

The administration arranged 16 flights to bring 2,744 Chinese citizens back home from Iran, Italy, the United Kingdom, the US and Spain between March 4 and Monday, he said, adding that 1,449 of those brought home were students.

"In the following weeks, the administration, under the coordination of the State Council joint prevention and control mechanism, will carry out major flight tasks in an orderly manner to bring students in urgent need in coronavirus hot spots back home," he said.

To minimize the risk of imported cases, the administration ordered a reduction of flights in and out of the country starting on March 29, Sun said, adding that China had handled only 250 inbound flights from then until Tuesday, carrying a total of 50,306 passengers.

With the exception of 38 inbound flights on March 29, China has seen no more than 20 inbound flights a day, with the number of inbound passengers averaging about 3,000 a day, he added.

In addition to slashing inbound flights, the administration has also required the diversion of such flights originally destined for Beijing to a dozen other cities since March 20. In those cities, all passengers must be tested for the virus upon disembarkation, with those cleared of the pathogen allowed to board the aircraft again and resume their flight to the capital.

By Tuesday, 127 flights carrying 28,697 passengers bound for Beijing had been diverted to the 12 designated airports, Sun said. failed, he said, adding that they had all been held locally for treatment or placed in a 14-day quarantine.

NEW TEST KITS GIVE ANSWERS WITHIN 45 MINUTES

The Chinese Academy of Sciences announced on April 9 that its biomedical institute in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, had created a nucleic acid test kit that could produce results in just 45 minutes.

The kit, which also enables on-site testing, can be stored and transported at room temperature.

Wang Daming, leader of the research team at the academy's Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, started working on the kit in January. The following month, he went to Hubei province to test its efficacy.

The kit only requires 20 microliters of nasal swab or mucus samples to produce a result, the institute said.

A single test machine can analyze 60 samples an hour, it said, adding that more than 600 patients had been tested with an accuracy rate of over 99 percent. The cost of the testing was not disclosed.

China has been striving to develop more advanced test kits while also tightening regulations for manufacturers.

Beate Trankmann, the United Nations Development Programme resident representative for China, said the country is one of the few markets that has not banned exports of medical supplies and is actively supporting global procurement to fight the novel coronavirus pandemic.

"What's impressive is the bilateral aid that China is putting forward," she said, adding that it is encouraging to see the nation "returning the favor after having received international assistance at the very beginning of the pandemic".

The kit developed by Wang's team uses a new technique called Hybrid Capture Immunofluorescence Analysis, or HC-IFA, which can dissolve the pathogen's exterior and directly detect the genetic material of the virus.

One of this method's biggest strengths is that it does not require polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, a commonly used process in nucleic acid test kits to amplify the COVID-19 viral signals for detection. The shortened procedure reduces the possibility of human error, making the new method less susceptible to false results.

Moreover, conventional PCR nucleic acid test kits must be transported in special cooling containers that use a considerable amount of dry ice, which has a surface temperature of minus 78 C.

However, only a few logistical companies can meet this transportation requirement, according to Zhou Yan, operations supervisor for Shanghai BioGerm Medical Biotechnology Co. This is because of dry ice's ability to quickly transmute into carbon dioxide, making it dangerous to store in a confined area, such as the cargo hold of an airplane.

The new test kit bypasses this problem, as its reagents are not as sensitive to temperature, so it is cheaper and more convenient to ship worldwide. The kit was approved by the National Medical Products Administration, or NMPA, on March 24.

TCM DRUGS APPROVED TO TREAT VIRUS

The Chinese government has acknowledged the important role TCM has played in treating COVID-19 patients and has added treatment of the virus to the specifications of three traditional medicines, a top TCM expert said on Wednesday.

Zhang Boli, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said the three Chinese patent medicines−Jinhua Qinggan Granule, Lianhua Qingwen Capsule and Xuebijing Injection−have proved clinically effective in treating COVID-19.

Adding the treatment of COVID-19 to the specifications of the three medicines means they can be widely used across the country to treat patients, Zhang said.

One of the three medicines, Lianhua Qingwen capsule, has won approval to enter the Thai market, and French researchers plan to conduct clinical research into using it to treat patients, he said.

"After more than two months of clinical research, we have chosen the three medicines out of hundreds of TCM medicines that are effective in treating cold and flu," he said.

"By introducing the medicines abroad, we hope that they can save more people as the pandemic continues to worsen globally," he said.

Li Yu, director of the Department of Science and Technology at the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said Jinhua Qinggan Granule, developed during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic, is effective in treating mild and moderate COVID-19 patients. Lianhua Qingwen capsule is also effective in treating mild and moderate patients, especially in improving symptoms like fever, cough and fatigue.

Xuebijing Injection is often used in treating severe and critically ill patients. It can increase the recovery rate and reduce the deterioration rate, Li said at a news conference on Tuesday.

Two TCM prescriptions−Lung Cleansing and Detoxifying Decoction, and Huashibaidu Formula−have been approved by the National Medical Products Administration for clinical trials, he said.

Lung Cleansing and Detoxifying Decoction is suitable for patients with light, moderate or severe symptoms, Li said.

ICU EXPERT EXPRESSES PRIDE IN LIVESAVING ROLE

It was mid-February, and the battle against the novel coronavirus seemed to be at a stalemate.

Those were the worst days for Li Xu, a physician and intensive care unit specialist, during his ongoing assignment at the Third People's Hospital of Shenzhen, the only facility in the Guangdong province city designated to treat patients confirmed as having COVID-19.

"Though no new patients came in, existing patients were not improving. It was like the battle had reached a standstill," he said.

The morale of Li, 35, and his colleagues plummeted when two patients died in quick succession.

On Jan 31, Li was transferred to the Third People's Hospital from the University of Hong Kong-Shenzhen Hospital, another medical center in the city, tasked with treating the most severely ill patients.

A 36-year-old patient surnamed Hu was close to death. Large areas of her lungs were severely infected and she was being kept alive by a ventilator. Li was determined to save her life.

In late January, Hu had visited relatives in Wuhan, Hubei province, the city once regarded as the epicenter of the outbreak.

When she returned to Shenzhen she was already infected with the coronavirus, which took a heavy toll on her family as her husband, mother and 7-year-old daughter also became infected.

In time, they recovered and were discharged from the hospital, but Hu's condition deteriorated. She was intubated and placed under sedation for more than 10 days.

The medical team made several attempts via different approaches to treat her, but nothing worked.

The team was disappointed, because no treatment seemed to improve Hu's condition and she was likely to die. Li decided to bring Hu out of her sedated state and adjust the treatment according to her reactions.

It was a risky decision. After Hu regained consciousness, her breathing became more rapid, which could have affected the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide in her body. Many other serious complications were also likely.

TESLA LAUNCHES VIRTUAL STORE ON TMALL IN CHINA

Tesla Inc opened its official virtual store on China's Tmall site on Thursday, a fresh sign of a deepened footprint in the country following the rollout of the locally made Model 3.

Consumers of Tmall, the business-to-consumer arm of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, stand to reserve test drives of Tesla's Model S, Model X and Model 3 vehicles via the site, and purchase an array of accessories including physical keys for Model 3 and home-use battery chargers, Tmall said in a press release.

To ride the country's thriving livestreaming boom, Tesla will debut an eight-day online broadcast session starting April 21, during which the electronic carmaker is expected to dish out mini car models for children, 48 hours of test-driving rights for the Model 3, as well as coupons for free charging services.

The US electric automaker sold 10,160 cars in China in March, its highest-ever monthly sales in the world's largest auto market, according to latest figures from the China Passenger Car Association.

Cui Dongshu, CPCA secretary-general, told a briefing earlier this month that Tesla sold around 30 percent of all battery electric vehicles sold in China. The company aims to produce 150,000 Model 3 sedans from its $2 billion Shanghai factory.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

We speak of educating our children. Do we know that our children also educate us? - Lydia Sigourney