China

WASHINGTON, April 4 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said in a message delivered to his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, on Thursday that new substantial progress has been made on the text of the China-U.S. economic and trade agreement in the past more than one month.

MANILA, April 3 (Xinhua) -- China's economy will continue to grow above 6 percent this year and next in line with the Chinese government's growth target of 6 to 6.5 percent, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in a report released on Wednesday.

The latest Asian Development Outlook (ADO) 2019, ADB's flagship economic publication, said China's economy is forecast to grow 6.3 percent in 2019 and 6.1 percent in 2020.

BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese agriculture scientists have bred new rice varieties named "Green Super Rice (GSR)" for developing Asian and African countries to reduce hunger and increase the income of farmers.

Supported by the Chinese government and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the project has bred 78 GSR varieties for 18 countries with a total growing area of 6.12 million hectares since its launch in 2008, hoping to benefit 30 million resource-poor smallholder rice farmers in Asia and Africa.

BEIJING, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang will travel to Europe on April 8-12 for the 21st China-EU leaders' meeting in Brussels, the eighth leaders' meeting of China and Central and Eastern European countries in Croatia, and an official visit to the country.

Li will make the Europe trip upon an agreement made by the Chinese and European sides, as well as at the invitation of Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, the Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Geng Shuang said here Tuesday.

SHANGHAI, April 1 (Xinhua) -- World famous consumer brands including Apple, Louis Vuitton and Gucci have announced their decisions to cut their suggested retail prices to give the gains from China's value-added tax (VAT) cut to consumers.

China on Monday started to slash VAT in multiple industries.

Apple's online store in China lowered the price of iPhone XS and iPhone XS MAX by 500 yuan (74.6 U.S. dollars), while that of iPhone XR dropped 300 yuan. Its newly launched iPad Air, iPad mini and AirPods are also on the price-cut list.

BEIJING, April 1 (Xinhua) -- A new relay satellite launched late Sunday night will allow videos calls to be made between China's future space station and the ground and provide data transmission and control services for various spacecraft.

The Tianlian II-01 satellite was sent to an orbit at an altitude of 36,000 km by a Long March-3B carrier rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province at 11:51 p.m. Beijing Time on Sunday.

BANGKOK (AP) — Shares surged Monday in Europe and Asia after the release over the weekend of encouraging manufacturing data in China that suggest government stimulus may be gaining traction.

Germany’s DAX gained 1.0 percent to 11,634.87 while the CAC40 in France jumped 0.9 percent to 5,396.96. Britain’s FTSE 100 advanced 0.8 percent to 7,340.09. Wall Street looked set to extend gains from last week, with the future contract for the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.7 percent to 26,103.00. That for the S&P 500 also gained 0.7 percent, to 2,856.90.

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese Premier Li Keqiang urged New Zealand to provide a “fair, transparent, convenient” investment environment in a meeting Monday with the country’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, that comes amid a dispute over use of Chinese telecoms equipment.

Relations between the two countries have been strained since New Zealand in November stopped mobile phone company Spark from using Huawei gear in its planned 5G upgrade because of security concerns.

BEIJING, April 1 (Xinhua) -- China sent a new data relay satellite into orbit from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in southwest China's Sichuan Province late Sunday night.

The Tianlian II-01 satellite was launched at 11:51 p.m. Beijing Time by a Long March-3B carrier rocket.

As the first satellite to constitute China's second-generation data relay satellite network, the Tianlian II-01 will provide data relay, measurement and control, transmission services for manned spacecraft, satellites, carrier rockets and other non-spacecraft users.

SHANGHAI, March 30 (Xinhua) -- A 5G network in Shanghai's Hongkou District, backed by Chinese telecom giant China Mobile, started trial runs on Saturday.

Wu Qing, Shanghai's vice mayor, made the network's first video call using a Huawei Mate X, a foldable 5G smartphone, at the launch ceremony.

A total of 228 5G base stations have been deployed in Hongkou, making it the first district in Shanghai fully covered by a 5G network and a gigabit broadband network.