LI STRESSES ACCESSIBILITY, AFFORDABILITY OF A VACCINE

Premier Li Keqiang reiterated on Thursday China's commitment to bolstering international cooperation on the research and development of vaccines for COVID-19 and contributing to ensuring vaccine accessibility and affordability in developing countries.

Speaking at the Global Vaccine Summit via video link in Beijing, Li also extended China's support to Gavi−formerly the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation−including in the form of donations, to cope with the pandemic's challenges. The virtual summit was held in London and hosted by the British government.

China will encourage its research institutions and vaccine producers to step up coordination with Gavi, a public-private partnership created in 2000, and support its playing an important role in promoting vaccine use, he said. The premier said a vaccine will be a strong shield, and China will continue to support the World Health Organization playing a central role in coordinating vaccine research and development.

He emphasized moving forward with clinical trials of vaccines and enabling the rapid commercial use of R&D results to provide global public goods that are safe, effective and high quality.

China has always put the people first and valued the life of its people more than anything else in the face of the sudden pandemic, and managed to bring the virus under control after an arduous effort from all its people, the premier said.

However, with the pandemic still spreading globally, no country is immune and the health of people in different countries is closely connected, he said.

Li said China will continue to do its best to support anti-pandemic work in other countries, especially developing countries. China announced in May that it will provide $2 billion over two years for COVID-19 response and for economic and social development in affected countries, especially developing countries.

The virtual summit−part of Gavi's third donor pledging conference, which aimed to raise at least $7.4 billion for the next five years−attracted leaders from over 30 countries and heads of the United Nations and the WHO.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at the summit that he hoped the event would be a moment for the world to come together. "I urge you to join us to fortify this lifesaving alliance and inaugurate a new era of global health cooperation, which I believe is now the most essential shared endeavor of our lifetimes," he said.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the summit that while a vaccine is essential, vaccines only realize their true power when they are used to protect the poorest and most vulnerable. "Our shared duty is to ensure that once a vaccine is available, it's available to everyone," he said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Gavi "a symbol of global solidarity, and a reminder that by helping others we can also help ourselves".

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Japan is committed to hosting the Olympics in 2021 as a "testament to the world's victory over COVID-19".

'LARGE RENMINBI DEPRECIATION UNLIKELY'

Large and long-term depreciation of the Chinese yuan is unlikely because the country's COVID-19-related recovery has been steady and arrived earlier than many other economies, Hu Xiaolian, chairwoman of the Export-Import Bank of China, told China Daily in an exclusive interview recently.

Hu said that policy banks would extend more financial support to exporters to sustain economic momentum as the country comes out of the novel coronavirus shadow.

"The recent fluctuations in the yuan exchange rate were largely due to trader sentiment, rather than a reflection of the economic fundamentals. As short-term market volatility is quite normal, we should not take too much notice of that," said Hu, a former vice-governor of the central bank.

The comments came after the yuan, both in the onshore and offshore markets, fell close to 7.2 against the US dollar, the lowest level since September 2019. The last time the Chinese currency fell beyond that point was in early 2008 during the global financial crisis, according to data from the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.

The temporary weakening of the yuan came as tensions between China and the United States ramped up in recent days over a number of issues. Despite the tensions, China has been at the forefront of the global economic recovery from the novel coronavirus outbreak, as its stable and resilient economic fundamentals can help avoid large drops in the yuan exchange rates, Hu said.

By Thursday afternoon, the onshore Chinese yuan trading had bounced back and was at 7.12 per dollar, while its offshore counterpart was at 7.13 against the greenback. The 2020 Government Work Report has set a goal to "keep the RMB exchange rate generally stable at an adaptive, balanced level".

Economists expect China's economic activity to show further recovery in May, more so from the service sector perspective rather than the manufacturing sector, along with a substantial improvement in retail sales.

LEADING GROUP URGES VIGILANCE ON OUTBREAK

China will adjust and improve its COVID-19 prevention and control measures while working on the domestic resumption of work and a possible increase in international exchanges, according to a statement released after a meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang on Thursday.

The epidemic situation in China remains generally stable at the moment, but there are still asymptomatic patients and the risk of imported infection cannot be neglected, said the leading group of COVID-19 epidemic response of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

According to the National Health Commission, one new imported case was reported on the Chinese mainland on Wednesday.

A total of 1,763 imported cases had been reported on the mainland as of Wednesday. Of these, 1,703 patients had been discharged from hospitals after recovery, and 60 remained hospitalized. No deaths had been reported from the imported cases, the commission said.

The leading group required efforts to continue with anti-epidemic measures, strengthened medical supervision of asymptomatic patients and the continued releasing of authentic, open and transparent epidemic information.

The State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism should provide more guidance for expanding the resumption of operations in sectors such as tourism, culture and sports, according to the statement from the meeting of the leading group.

As schools in the country are reopening, the meeting said, efforts should be made to ensure they strictly implement epidemic prevention and control plans on campuses.

Control measures for the upcoming senior high school and college entrance examinations should be further detailed, it said, adding that emergency drills must be reinforced and anti-epidemic materials and personnel be prepared.

According to the statement, research and development of COVID-19 vaccines in China had achieved initial progress. This required efforts to respect the rules of science and push forward clinical trials at various stages in accordance with laws and regulations, the statement said, urging early breakthroughs in order to guarantee public health.

China's capabilities in COVID-19 testing keep improving, with its daily testing capacity now surpassing 3 million, the leading group said, calling for greater efforts to develop fast detection reagents and to manufacture portable testing equipment to facilitate testing in more situations.

Over the past weeks, Wuhan, the city hit hardest by COVID-19 in China, had conducted nucleic acid tests on nearly 9.9 million residents, with 300 asymptomatic cases reported and no confirmed cases found.

The meeting also urged efforts to improve the testing capability of some local disease control and prevention institutions and hospitals.

KUNSHAN SETS NEW GDP RECORD

Kunshan became the first county in China with a GDP exceeding 400 billion yuan ($56.28 billion) according to Yicai.com on Thursday.

The county in southern Jiangsu province saw its GDP reach 404.51 billion yuan in 2019, up 6.1 percent year-on-year if calculated at comparable prices. It has ranked first for 16 straight years as the strongest county economically in China.

Compared with prefecture cities or cities at higher administrative level, Kunshan has outrun provincial capital cities as Guiyang and Taiyuan.

Following Kuanshan, Jiangyin, another county in southern Jiangsu province, also saw its GDP surpass the 400 billion yuan threshold, recording 400.11 billion yuan, up 6.8 percent from previous year.

Southern area of Jiangsu province boasts rich historical traditions, abundant talents, and strong technology. It benefits from two higher education centers of Shanghai and Nanjing, as well as Suzhou, home to top-class universities, said Ding Changfa, deputy professor of the Economics Department of Xiamen University. Strong science and education recourses fuel industries' transformation and upgrade and the development in high tech in southern Jiangsu. The spillover effect from Shanghai is prominent, the professor added.

Among the top 20 strongest counties by GDP, eight are in Jiangsu, five in Zhejiang. And four out of five of the 20 are in coastal China.

Tian Boping, researcher at Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Social Science, said Jiangsu and Zhejiang benefit from better geographic conditions, convenient transportation and good development foundation. In addition, they have stronger commercial atmosphere, more liberal outlook and timely grasp of opportunities in the country's reform and opening-up.

By contrast, the number one economically strong province, Guandong saw none of its counties enter the top 20. Peng Peng, executive chairman of Guangdong Society of Economic Reform, said the province has an unbalanced development as the Pearl River Delta area has great disparity with eastern, western and northern Guandong. Key elements for economic development are concentrated in the Pearl River Delta. But former counties in the delta area have been put under administration as a city's district.

Such situation also seen in the Yangtze River Delta area is a key factor that affects the distribution of economically strong counties, said Ding Changfa.

CHINA'S COVID-19 NUMBERS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

There is no need for China to argue with other countries about the transparency of COVID-19 information as the facts speak for themselves, said renowned Chinese respiratory expert Zhong Nanshan.

The country has released information on the pandemic in a timely, open and transparent manner, Zhong said while attending a symposium presided over by President Xi Jinping on Tuesday.

After the expert team sent to Wuhan confirmed that the virus was capable of human-to-human transmission, the central leadership decided to put the city under lockdown and conducted strong containment measures around the country, he said.

Because of the early and decisive decision-making, the country has achieved important results in containing the pandemic, and the infection rate and death rate of COVID-19 in China is among the lowest in the world, Zhong said.

However, some politicians and media in the United States have repeatedly blamed China for deliberately hiding information about the pandemic based on no evidence and have used the pandemic to smear and attack China, he said.

According to a report by CNN, the US has the highest per capita infection and death rates for COVID-19 and some European countries also have high infection and death rates, while China has the lowest. Therefore, they concluded that the country must have been hiding something, Zhong said.

"We do not need to explain ourselves and we just need to let the facts speak for themselves," he said.

The mass nucleic acid testing of nearly 10 million Wuhan residents from May 14 to June 1 found no confirmed cases and only 300 asymptomatic cases, which was very remarkable, he said.

"The mass testing shows that the country does have a low infection rate and is consistent with the data released previously by the government," he said. "We achieved such results because we did a good job in containing the spread of the virus early."

Researchers in China have not only conducted studies, but also written papers to analyze and summarize those studies, he said.

As of May 10, a total of 2,151 papers about COVID-19 had been published in the world's best-known journals, said Zhong, based on data from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

"Among the over 2,000 articles, China has contributed 650 pieces, accounting for nearly one-third of the total," he said. "These articles have provided a very good experience in guiding the world on pandemic containment."

Zhong said he has participated in dozens of international video conferences sharing China's experience in containing the pandemic thanks to the experiences summarized in the papers.

"Our research papers are not only for China, but also for the whole world," Zhong said.

RETURN OF STREET MARKETS RAISES OLD HYGIENE CONCERNS

With mobile vendors flooding back to streets in many cities, residents are noticing the return of nighttime vitality, but experts have called for more effective guidance to help street markets work well.

When mobile vendors occupied some streets in Dalian, Liaoning province, on Tuesday, they attracted enthusiastic visitors but also caused a traffic jam. After the night market finished, the area was littered with plastic bags, disposable paper bowls and other waste.

That led to the night market being closed for rectification, the organizers of the ongoing Dalian Shopping Festival told news website ThePaper.cn on Wednesday, adding that the spontaneous setting up of stalls by vendors without unified management had adversely affected the environment and traffic conditions.

"I'm really happy we have street markets again. It is part of our lives. But I hope they become more clean and tidy," said Dalian resident Jiang Lijuan, 65.

On June 1, when Dalian launched its first batch of street markets, it listed nine requirements, including that all commercial operators must remove garbage as soon as possible and keep the areas they operate in clean and tidy.

Similar measures to encourage street markets and the nighttime economy have been adopted in more than 20 other cities, including Chengdu in Sichuan province, Shanghai, and Nanjing in Jiangsu province.

Since March, Chengdu's city government has allowed people to run businesses in designated areas on some pedestrian streets in a move to boost the economy.

In past decades, street stalls were gradually banned in big cities because they were considered dirty and messy and affected the good image of a city. But this year's national civilized city evaluation index excluded roadside booths, street markets and mobile vendors from its assessment criteria.

Zhou Xueren, a researcher with the School of Economic and Social Development at Dongbei University of Finance and Economics, said urban managers should strengthen guidance and support.

"We need to reduce health and safety problems, ensure market order and provide supporting services for transportation and other coordination in order to maintain market vigor and the power of consumption on the one hand, while also meet requirements for safety, health and tidiness," Zhou said.

Street markets, which do not require much investment, can stimulate the independent employment of individuals, increase their income and bring new vitality to the recovery of local economies from the impact of the novel coronavirus outbreak, he said.

Traffic police in Shenyang, Liaoning province, said they will participate in the planning and setting up of roadside stalls to facilitate the activities of vendors and consumers and prevent traffic from being affected by stalls occupying roads.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks. - Marcus Aurelius