China, having lifted over 93 million people out of absolute poverty over the past seven years, still has 5.51 million rural residents living below the official poverty line.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made poverty reduction a priority in his agenda as the outbreak posed immediate challenges to the country's targets.

He delivered an important speech at a nationwide teleconference on March 6 that called for heightened poverty reduction measures amid challenges from the outbreak.

He visited impoverished mountain areas, communities, households and a tea plantation during a four-day inspection trip to Shaanxi province last week. He underlined the importance of adopting targeted actions to improve the living standards of poor people and establishing mechanisms that prevent poverty from returning.

"I have confidence in attaining the poverty reduction targets this year. What I am more concerned about is whether we can stabilize our achievements and whether we can establish a long-term mechanism," he told officials in Shaanxi.

Qi Gubo, a professor of rural development studies at China Agricultural University, said: "President Xi has extended a message of confidence that China will deliver its target of poverty elimination this year with firm actions."

In doing so, China will at least attain the two goals set in the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which are ending poverty in all its forms everywhere and promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all, she said.

She added that China has ramped up its poverty reduction campaign this year despite the fact that its economy has suffered its first contraction in decades.

The central financial authorities allocated special poverty alleviation funds totaling 139.6 billion yuan ($19.7 billion) for 2020 by the end of March to authorities at lower levels, which was one month earlier than in previous years.

LEGISLATURE TO DECIDE ON DATE OF 3RD SESSION

The top legislature is expected to decide on Wednesday on the exact timing of this year's plenary session of the National People's Congress, after the nation's most important annual political event was postponed due to the novel coronavirus epidemic.

A draft decision on the opening date of this year's full session of the NPC was submitted for review on Sunday to the bimonthly meeting of the NPC Standing Committee, according to an official release. The meeting is scheduled to end on Wednesday. No details were disclosed.

The annual plenary session of the NPC normally opens in early March. About 3,000 national legislators from across the country gather in Beijing to review work reports from the central government, as well as the nation's highest court and procuratorate, the budget and the national economic and social development plan. In some years, they also deliberate on key bills or elect State leaders.

However, the NPC Standing Committee decided in February to postpone the third plenary session of the 13th NPC, as the nation was focusing on fighting the COVID-19 outbreak at the time and many national legislators were working on the front line of the battle.

Also on the agenda of the bimonthly meeting of the NPC Standing Committee are draft revisions to the Law on Animal Epidemic Prevention and the Law on the People's Armed Police Force. A draft amendment to the Copyright Law was also submitted to the top legislature for the first reading on Sunday.

In the following three days, the legislature will also have a second review of a draft biosecurity law, and a draft law on administrative discipline−a law to strengthen supervision over everyone who exercises public power in the public sector.

A draft revision to the Law on the Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste will go to a third reading.

The latest version has proposed strengthened management of medical waste, especially how to manage medical waste in major infectious disease epidemics.

Draft laws are usually reviewed three times by the top legislative body before being adopted, according to the Legislative Law.

Lawmakers have also been deliberating a draft decision to authorize the State Council to temporarily adjust relevant laws and regulations in the Hainan pilot free trade zone and a report on environmental protection.

PBOC GOVERNOR URGES RISK PREVENTION IN ARTICLE

The central bank governor urged preventing risk from high debt levels, as financial stimulus ramps up to curb prolonged economic contractions caused by the unprecedented novel coronavirus pandemic, according to an article he authored.

The nation's macro leverage level, or the total debt-to-GDP ratio, is likely to rise continually, and a task of the macroeconomic policies is to keep the ratio stable. It should strike a balance between economic stability and risk prevention to leave room for a long-term sustainable growth, Yi Gang, Governor of the People's Bank of China, wrote for a piece in a magazine run by the country's forex regulator on Sunday.

China will take counter-cyclical measures to mitigate shocks from the COVID-19 pandemic, keeping liquidity at a reasonably ample level and sustaining proper growth of money and credit supply, the governor said.

Targeted measures will support companies hit severely by the virus, including the offer of sufficient capital, he added. "The impact of the epidemic on China's economy will be short-lived, and the economic fundamentals will not change."

Yi stressed that, in the current stage, "a proper policy choice is to remain stable macro leverage ratio", requiring a broad stabilization of economic growth, house prices and market expectation, considering the demand for rising debt and the necessity to prevent risks.

"Too much aggressive stimulus may lead to inflation and a surge of the macro leverage ratio," the PBOC governor warned. "Thus (China) needs to keep using conversional monetary policy tools as long as possible to support the long-term development strategy."

The country's macro leverage level increased fast during the decade, up from 145.4 percent in 2008 to 248.7 percent in 2018. The leverage ratio for corporates surged to 159.8 percent at the end of 2016, which was a relatively higher level compared with other countries in the world, according to Yi's article.

OUTBREAK SEES JUMP IN JOB OFFERS FOR LIVESTREAMERS

Demand for livestreaming anchors has jumped since the start of the novel coronavirus pneumonia pandemic as people spend more leisure time at home surfing the internet.

According to a report by Zhaopin, an online recruitment platform in Beijing, and Renmin University of China, the novel coronavirus outbreak has funneled customers to digital entertainment sites, spurring the growth of the online economy, especially livestreaming.

The report said that job vacancies in entertainment, sports and leisure rose 3 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of the year.

Zhaopin CEO Guo Sheng said on Wednesday that the outbreak had severely disrupted the job market, with only 5 percent of surveyed companies saying they did not expect losses due to the pandemic.

"Actually, the job market faces great challenges, but demand for some positions is growing rather quickly," he said. "For example, real estate agents and, obviously, people for livestreaming."

Real estate agencies had been enjoying brisk business despite the outbreak because renting was becoming less popular.

Guo said that though the job market was depressed, livestreaming talent had become more popular among e-commerce businesses seeking people to promote products, with job vacancies growing by nearly 84 percent year-on-year.

Data from QuestMobile, a big-data company in Beijing, show that the time people are spending on the internet has increased 21.5 percent since the outbreak started. Driven by people staying at home, the online economy is also expanding.

The report said livestreaming positions appeal to part-timers and people who prefer flexible employment, adding that last month, part-time job listings for livestreaming rose 166 percent year-on-year.

The average income for livestreaming bloggers−including basic salary and sales-related bonuses−was 9,845 yuan ($1,400) a month in February, up 1.63 percent year-on-year.

SCIENTIST WANTS YANGTZE BODY

A leading water environment scientist has called for the establishment of an authority in charge of all water governance functions in the Yangtze River basin, saying it would have a "decisive" role in the campaign to conserve Asia's longest river.

Without such a body, which would be able to rein in different regions and government bodies, the "highly systematic" campaign would not be able to achieve complete victory, warned Qu Jiuhui, an academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

Qu also chairs an academic committee for the National Joint Research Center for Yangtze River Conservation, which has dispatched teams of experts to each of the 58 major cities in the Yangtze basin to help with local water remediation efforts.

The teams were deployed in late 2018 to conduct front-line and follow-up research, and more than 5,000 experts from some 300 institutes had worked on them by the end of last year, the center said.

The main stream of the Yangtze flows almost 6,400 kilometers across 11 provincial-level regions. Its drainage basin covers a fifth of China's land area and about a third of its population.

Qu said one of his major concerns was whether systematic and sustainable regional solutions could be formulated and integrated into public governance in different cities and across the entire basin, noting a number of hurdles.

Some local governments had resorted to "superficial" measures, such as constructing sewage pipe networks, to treat water bodies, he said, but the effects might only be temporary.

A key task for the teams is to identify the sources of problems originating far from bodies of water.

"It's not an easy task," Qu said, because comprehensive surveys and evaluations had to be rolled out to trace all the major potential risks.

He warned, however, that the teams' work would not bear fruit unless the solutions they worked out could be integrated into each city's overall management planning.

"This is where the real challenges in the Yangtze conservation campaign come from," Qu said.

The Changjiang Water Resources Commission is one authority that already has limited oversight of the Yangtze basin, but Qu said that as an agency of the Ministry of Water Resources, it is not powerful enough to address its conservation challenges.

In China, various government bodies are involved in water management, including the ministries of water resources, ecology and environment, and housing and urban-rural development. The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, for example, is responsible for sewage treatment.

"All these government bodies have their own monitoring systems," Qu said. "Aside from challenges in integrating the management of the water environment, ecology and resources, there are also difficulties in coordinating different government bodies to contribute their data and resources and roll out policies and measures to help address problems."

OFFICIALS VOW INTENSIFIED BATTLE AGAINST COUNTERFEITS

China pledged to intensify its fight against counterfeit goods at its roots to further protect intellectual property rights and build a better business environment. This follows achievements in harshly cracking down on fake supplies during the novel coronavirus outbreak.

"Since the COVID-19 epidemic happened, we mainly clamped down on those producing or selling fake, expired or low-qualify protective materials, including masks and disinfectants, and people who falsified others' trademarks to mislead consumers, as this type of behavior harmed the public interest, disturbed market order and affected social stability," said Gan Lin, vice-minister of the State Administration for Market Regulation.

She spoke on Sunday, World Intellectual Property Day, at a news conference on the country's latest developments in IPR protection and business environment, held by the State Council Information Office in Beijing.

As of Friday, market regulation agencies nationwide had seized more than 89 million problematic masks and 418,000 other unusable protective supplies, said Gan, who also is director of the Office of the National Leading Group on the Fight Against IPR Infringement and Counterfeiting.

The agencies had filed 26,605 cases and issued fines and confiscated totaling 350 million yuan ($49.4 million) in administrative punishment, while another 757 cases have been transferred to public security departments to be criminally investigated, she said.

Highlighting the protection of people's lives, safety and health through crackdowns, she said, "We'll mete out harsher punishment to those who deliberately or repeatedly make or sell fake goods, as a way to uproot counterfeits and have infringers pay greater penalties for such behavior."

Zhang Zhicheng, head of the IP Protection Department of the National Intellectual Property Administration, said intensified administrative and legal efforts not only promote IP rights development, but also help the country improve the business environment.

For example, the revised Trademark Law, which took effect in November, has increased compensation for victims of infringement while similar amendments of the Patent Law are also on the way, he said.

Last year, government offices that handle IP-related issues reduced the average time to examine a trademark to 4.5 months and revoked 39,000 improper trademark applications. That improves efficiency in meeting social demand and ensuring high-quality IP development, he added.

FINAL CHECKS FOR ROCKET COMPLEX AT WUHAN BASE

A manufacturing complex for China's Kuaizhou-series carrier rockets in Wuhan, Hubei province, will be put into operation soon, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, the major investor in the facility, said last week.

All the infrastructure for the Kuaizhou Rocket Complex at the Wuhan National Space Industry Base has been built and is undergoing qualification checks, the State-owned defense conglomerate said in a statement issued on Friday.

The 30-hectare complex includes factories, testing facilities, office buildings and a power station.

It will have an initial production capacity of 20 Kuaizhou-series solid-propellant rockets a year, CASIC said.

Infrastructure construction began in May 2017 and was scheduled to be completed before the end of February this year. However, the impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak led to the suspension of final preparations, which resumed in mid-March.

After the complex starts operation, CASIC will be able to assemble at least 10 Kuaizhou 1As and at least 10 Kuaizhou 11s a year, said Zhang Di, a senior rocket scientist and chairman of Expace Technology in Wuhan, a CASIC subsidiary that builds the Kuaizhou rockets.

"If our rockets become more popular in the market and orders keep increasing, we can expand the annual production capacity to 30," he said.

The 20-meter-tall Kuaizhou 1A has a liftoff weight of about 30 metric tons. It is capable of sending a 200 kilogram payload into a sun-synchronous orbit, or a 300 kg payload into a low-Earth orbit.

Kuaizhou 11, a larger model under development, will be 25 meters tall, with a liftoff weight of 78 tons. It will be able to place a 1-ton payload into a sun-synchronous orbit at an altitude of 700 kilometers, or a 1.5-ton payload into a low-Earth orbit.

CASIC said it will be China's largest and most powerful solid-propellant carrier rocket.

Construction of the 68.8-square-kilometer Wuhan National Space Industry Base, China's first commercial space industry hub, began in the city's Xinzhou district in April 2017.

CASIC began to develop the Kuaizhou series in 2009 as a low-cost, quick-response product for the commercial space market. It is the largest solid-propellant rocket family in China, as opposed to the Long March series, which mainly uses liquid fuel.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Courage makes heroes, trust builds friendship. – Unknown