CHINA'S SHANXI OFFERS OVER 3 BILLION YUAN OF MICROLOANS FOR POVERTY REDUCTION

North China's Shanxi province has offered some 3.32 billion yuan (about $494 million) of microloans for poverty alleviation since the start of this year, according to local authorities.

Some 74,500 registered impoverished households have benefited from the microloans, said an official of the provincial poverty alleviation office.

China aims to eradicate absolute poverty by 2020. As a financial tool for targeted poverty alleviation, microloans have played an important role in helping impoverished households to escape poverty.

Statistics show that Shanxi offered microloans to nearly 450,000 impoverished households from 2015 to 2019, with the loan amount totaling 21.4 billion yuan.

Given the impact of COVID-19, the province has also extended the repayment period of such microloans by up to six months.

NINGXIA TO HOLD INTERNATIONAL WINE EXPO NEXT WEEK

The 2020 East Helan Mountain Area International Wine Expo will be held on Oct 22 and 23 in Yinchuan, capital of Ningxia Hui autonomous region, according to a news conference held on Friday.

Around 500 experts and people from domestic and abroad wine organizations, associations, colleges, enterprises and companies will take part in the expo, the ninth of its kind, themed "gathering to realize purple dream."

Besides the opening ceremony, the expo will hold Sino-French wine forum, world wine tourism forum that will assess and publish top 10 potential wine tourism areas, wine industry investment and order meeting and an event on wine brands.

Due to regular epidemic prevention and control, the expo will also be held for the first time through the combination of online and offline mode.

The wine industrial park of East Helan Mountain Area will also take part in the expo.

Zhao Shihua, executive deputy director of the park's management committee, said after 30 years' development, the wine grape planting area has reached 32,816.4 hectares, becoming the largest producer of wine grapes in China.

There are 92 wineries with the ability to process 200,000 tons of grapes and produce 130 million bottles of wine annually.

CHINA TO CELEBRATE WORLD CITIES DAY IN FUZHOU

China will hold celebrations marking the World Cities Day in Fujian provincial capital Fuzhou from Oct 30 to Nov 1, according to the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Under the theme of Valuing Our Communities and Cities, the focus of the event is to exchange and showcase policies, experiences and practices in promoting sustainable development and improving living environment in the urban areas around the globe as the world implements the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and New Urban Agenda, said Hu Zijian, director-general of the ministry's department of planning, finance and foreign affairs, in a news conference on Friday.

Li Zhe, a senior official with the department, said the event will be held online and offline simultaneously. Aside from live broadcast, short videos and articles illustrated with photos of the event will be also presented online to facilitate the participation of people from home and abroad.

Yang Xinjian, vice-mayor of Fuzhou, said, in addition to forums, urban development cases and excellent architectures will be displayed in exhibitions held on the sidelines of the event.

The World Cities Day was first proposed in a declaration issued on the closing day of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai in a bid to recall, renew and advance ideas and practices of the Shanghai Expo for future development.

Thanks to the promotion of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade and Shanghai government, the United Nations General Assembly decided to designate Oct 31 of every year as World Cities Day in Dec 2013.

Li said the World Cities Day has played a major role in generating concerns for sustainable urban development across the world.

The day has provided a key platform to publicize the concept of sustainable urban development and discuss how to construct livable and harmonious cities and cope with challenges emerging from the world's urbanization process, he noted.

It has also helped publicize the country's philosophy in promoting urban development and showed to the world the country's achievement and experiences, he continued.

Thanks to events held for the day, more and more experts and civilians in the country have begun to pay attention to sustainable urban development and contribute their wisdom and strength to the issue, he said.

PREMIER LI SENDS CONGRATULATORY LETTER TO NEW COMMERCIAL DISPUTE MEDIATION ORGANIZATION

Premier Li Keqiang sent a congratulatory letter to an international commercial dispute prevention and settlement organization that was founded in Beijing.

Rules and the rule of law are a protection net for traders and investors when dealing with uncertainties, risks and challenges, and also act as a fair scale that can be used to properly resolve commercial disputes, Li said.

In recent years, the Chinese government has made sustained efforts to create a market-oriented, law-based and internationalized business environment, and has devised impartial regulations to ensure fair competition, he said.

China will continue to deepen reforms, expand opening up, treat foreign and domestic companies equally, and create a better environment for all types of market entities to make investments and innovations, as well as start businesses, Li said.

Li hoped that all parties can make a good use of the newly established mediation platform to protect their legitimate rights and promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation.

Initiated by industrial, commercial and legal service institutions from more than 40 countries and regions, the new organization aims to provide diversified services including dispute prevention and settlement for international commercial entities.

SHENZHEN, HK SHOULD JOIN HANDS TO BOOST GROWTH, EXPERT SAYS

Shenzhen and Hong Kong have seen remarkable developments over the past decades, and both cities should focus on cooperation in order to achieve quality of growth in the post-COVID world, said Chandran Nair, a Malaysian business leader and founder of a Hong Kong-based think tank. He made his comments to China Daily after President Xi Jinping's Shenzhen speech marking the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the country's first special economic zone.

UK UNIVERSITIES RALLY TO HELP CHINESE STUDENTS

Many universities in the United Kingdom are chartering flights to help bring thousands of Chinese students to study in the country despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

An education expert said that as China is the UK's largest source of international students, such arrangements could become "normal procedure" in coming years.

The pandemic has caused widespread disruption to international travel, with only a limited number of flights operating between the two countries.

However, this has not stopped efforts being made by UK higher education institutions to overcome such restrictions and arrange flights to bring in students from China-attempts mainly aimed at buoying tuition revenue.

Last month, a flight chartered by Queen's University Belfast, carrying 369 students from China on one-way tickets costing £616($795), landed in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. The university was one of the first in the UK to arrange a direct charter flight and airport transfers to bring students directly to its campus.

Just a few days later, 74 students boarded a Hainan Airlines charter flight from Chongqing to Manchester, northern England, to resume their overseas education.

It was the first such flight operated by a Chinese airline to take students from the country back to schools overseas. During the next two months, the airline is expected to fly some 20,000 Chinese students from across the country out of Chongqing to Manchester or Bristol, in western England.

Other universities in England and Wales have also been looking to use charter flights for students from China, according to WalesOnline. These schools include Swansea University, Cardiff University, Cardiff Metropolitan University, the University of South Wales, the University of the West of England, the University of Exeter and the University of Plymouth.

Steve Spriggs, managing director at William Clarence Education, an education placement, tuition and consultancy service based in London, said, "I think this will become more commonplace as we go into next year, and may even become a normal procedure in future years."

With the higher education market set to become increasingly competitive, and as UK institutions compete with those from Canada, the United States and Australia for top talent in China, Spriggs said he feels this could become a new trend.

He added, "Making it as easy as possible to access university makes sense, and if it means chartering a flight to China and back, then, commercially, that also makes sense."

Julian Fisher, senior partner at the consultancy Venture Education in Beijing, said,"When the pandemic hit the UK, universities were relatively slow to react, but I think they have made a considerable effort since then to support their international students.

ECONOMIC CIRCLE TO LINK CHONGQING, CHENGDU

A key Party meeting on Friday called for advancing the construction of the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circle, seen as a major move to promote the new development pattern in response to the complex domestic and international situation.

The meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee reviewed a master plan for the coordinated development of Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, and Chongqing. Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, presided over the meeting.

Participants said that given profound changes in the development environment both at home and abroad, advancing the economic circle will help shape the regional economic structure and encourage the two cities to complement each other, according to a statement released after the meeting. It also contributes to expanding markets, optimizing and stabilizing supply chains and encouraging the new development pattern with the domestic market as the mainstay while domestic and international markets complement each other, it said.

The meeting called for leveraging the strength of each city so as to make the economic circle an influential center, a key technological innovation hub, a shining example of reform and opening-up and a pleasant place to live.

The cities should work together to create a high-standard market system, foster a first-class business environment and participate in construction of the Belt and Road and the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor jointly built by China and Singapore, the statement said.

FDI SURGES BY 5.2% IN FIRST NINE MONTHS

China's actual use of foreign capital rose the first time in the first three quarters of the year, both in yuan and dollar terms, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce on Friday.

Foreign direct investment in China grew by 5.2 percent on a yearly basis to 718.81 billion yuan ($107.2 billion) between January and September. In dollar terms it increased by 2.5 percent to $103.26 billion.

China's early recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, new business models and growing size of the domestic market will prompt global companies to continue investment in China for long-term success, said Zhang Yongjun, a researcher at the Beijing-based China Center for International Economic Exchanges.

"Since the reform and opening-up policy has laid a solid foundation for an open economy, China will still be in a period of rapid advancement in industrialization and urbanization," he said, noting the huge demand potential will provide continuous impetus to global businesses.

FDI in China rose 25.1 percent on a yearly basis in September to 99.03 billion yuan, the sixth consecutive month of growth on a yearly basis.

China's nonfinancial outbound direct investment in economies involved in the Belt and Road Initiative also surged 29.7 percent on a yearly basis to $13.02 billion in the first three quarters, helping sustain confidence in these markets to support their long-term economic growth, said the ministry.

In the meantime, Chinese companies' investment in these markets accounted for 16.5 percent of its total ODI. The share was up by 4.1 percentage points from the same period last year.

Zhang said China's ODI structure continued to diversify between January and September, with investment mainly flowing into sectors such as leasing and business services, wholesale and retail, as well as petrochemicals and water conservation projects in the global markets.

China's ODI fell by 0.6 percent on a yearly basis to 551.51 billion yuan during the first nine months of the year. Chinese companies signed 518 project deals with contract value of more than $50 million each in the first three quarters. The total value of these projects reached $124.88 billion, according to the ministry.

China Railway Construction Corp Ltd, or CRCC, signed an agreement for the construction of the Moscow-Kazan highway late last month. Valued at about $763.36 million, the project was the first national highway construction in Russia contracted out to a Chinese company.

REQUIRED PE SCORES TO BE RAISED ON NATION'S HIGH SCHOOL ENTRANCE EXAMS

China will gradually increase required scores on the physical exercise test to the same level as those of Chinese, math and English on high school entrance exams to improve physical education in schools, a senior education official said on Friday.

Wang Dengfeng, head of the department of physical, health and arts education at the Ministry of Education, said Yunnan province is the only provincial region in China to give PE classes the same weight as academic subjects on high school entrance exams, and other regions should gradually increase the weight of PE classes to match those of academic subjects.

The country should also immediately start research on including PE classes in the national college entrance exam, or gaokao, Wang said at a news conference.

All provincial regions also should gradually add tests of students' aesthetic abilities to the high school entrance exams by 2022 to strengthen aesthetic education, he said, adding that 12 cities in six provincial regions have started the practice, with scores varying from 10 to 40 points.

He spoke after central authorities issued guidelines on strengthening and improving physical and aesthetic education in schools in the new era on Thursday.

The guidelines, issued by the general offices of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the State Council, stressed the importance of carrying out reforms in physical and aesthetic education, adding more facilities and faculty and improving curriculum design and institutional support.

The guidelines encouraged primary and secondary schools to provide students with one PE class a day and to open enough aesthetic education classes－mainly art classes like music, painting, calligraphy, dance, drama and operato meet requirements.

Primary and junior high schools should teach students to master two basic sports skills such as running and jumping and get them involved in sports such as soccer, basketball, volleyball, swimming and winter sports. The students are also expected to learn up to two art skills. Meanwhile, university students must earn enough credits in PE and aesthetic classes to graduate, they said.

They also encouraged universities and research institutes to open PE classes and aesthetic classes, which are not mandatory at present, for postgraduate students.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

There are two ways to slide easily through life; to believe everything or to doubt everything. Both ways save us from thinking. - Alfred Korzybski