will be publicized on the CNIPA website and China Intellectual Property News, a Beijing-base
The annual Huaihua Beautiful Country Culture and Arts Festival recently took place in Huna
n province, aiming to involve more villagers in art creation and vitalize local culture.
Hosted by the China Art Association, Hunan Photographers Association and the Huaihua Feder
ation of Literary and Art Circles, this year’s arts festival featured local people performing a vari
ety of disciplines on stage, including wind and percussion music, group dance and Chinese operas.
Unique to this year’s arts festival is a photography exhibition, showcasing 50 pictures taken by mi
grant workers. The photos are selected from the award winners of the 2018 Hunan Province W
orkers Photography Exhibition.
“These photos focus on the extraordinary achievements made by laborers from all wa
lks of life, freeze-framing the wonderful moments of their daily work, presenting their diligence, endeavor and co
mmitment to innovation,” says Liang Xiangfeng, secretary-general of Hunan Photographers Association.
The exhibition is a major measure taken by the association in 2019 in its bid to use the arts to alleviate poverty and promote rural vitalization.
Founder of the arts festival, artist Shu Yong, says: “To vitalize the countryside, we must first vitalize rur
al culture. Only when the local villagers feel proud of their home and culture, can rural vitalization truly be realized.”
Another three prototypes for China’s first homegrown large passenger jet, the C919, will conduct their maiden flights this year, follow
ing the success of a third one on Dec 28, 2018, according to the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd (COMAC), the maker of the jet.
The 104 prototype test aircraft of the China-made C919 has entered its final assembly stage, the 10
5 is undergoing the assembly of major components, and the main components of the 106 are in pro
duction. The maiden test flights for all three new prototype jets are expected to take place before the end of 2019.
The addition of these three would bring the total number of C919 prototype test aircraft to six.
To date, domestic and overseas buyers have placed orders for 815 of the China-m
ade C919 aircraft.Chinese communities around the world welcomed the Year of th
e Pig on Feb 5, ushering in Lunar New Year with prayers, family feasts and shopping sprees.
Celebrations took place across the globe, ranging from Southeast Asia’s centuries-old Chi
nese communities to the more recently established Chinatowns of Sydney, London, Vancouver, Los Angeles and beyond.
upe that’s affiliated to the cultural center where Yi works. Currently, there are about 30 members in the opera troupe, with ages r
anging from 20 to over 60. The average age of the per-formers is 40, according to Yi. Being listed as a national int
angible cultural heritage has drawn more efforts toward protecting the art form.
“Most of the young performers were recruited after the opera was listed as national intangible cultural heritage,” Yi adds.
The local government’s support in recent years includes adding to the troupe member
s’ livelihoods and taking on costs for regular shows at the One Yuan Theater into its annual budget plan, Yi says.
Liu Liurong, 50, a leading member of the troupe, says she has witnessed the enhancement o
f the opera over the past years. Having performed such shows for more than 30 years, Liu is recognized as a p
rovincial-level inheritor of the art since 2009. She says she had dreamed of standing on stage since she was in middle school.
mote scientific and technology innovation to make them more competitive.
Zhou Yawei, a member of the Standing Committee of the Guangzhou Committee of the Communist
Party of China and secretary of the Party Working Committee of the Guangzhou D
evelopment District, said the district has registered more than 20,000 science and
technology companies and took the lead in innovation among 219 State-level development zones in China last year.
It is the first time the district – which is home to Sino-Singapore Know
ledge City, Guangzhou Science City and Guangzhou International Island – has led State-level de
velopment zones in scientific and technological innovation. It ranked second in 2017.
“The district, in the eastern part of Guangzhou, introduced preferential policies to promot
e scientific and technological innovation years ago,” Zhou said. “Priority was given to the dev
elopment of the information, artificial intelligence and biopharmaceutical industries.
“Scientific and technological innovation are expected to play an even bigger role in
the district’s economic development and industrial upgrading in the years ahead.”
Zhou promised to attract more high-end talent from home and abroad t
his year to help boost the district’s scientific and technological innovation efforts.
Several ministry-level departments, including those for human resources and social security,
civil affairs, and finance, have responded recently to issues of public concern.
Employment survey to help job seekers
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Securit
y has launched an online survey in an effort to improve services to job seekers.
In a notice posted on its website on Feb 2, the ministry invited members of the public to fill in
an employment questionnaire and give it a better understanding of the employment sit
uation after the Feb 4-10 Spring Festival holiday.
The survey is open to the public until Feb 20. Respondents can access the questionnair
e by scanning a QR code on the screen of their cellphones or logging on to the ministry’s website.
The ministry also surveyed employers and job-seekers last year to find out more about employment needs after Spring Festival.
Swiping phones for payment is shaping up to be the new norm for Chinese people shopping oversea
s, as the adoption of mobile payment becomes more evenly distributed by age and geographical location.
Customers in their 50s saw a 1.3-fold increase in Alipay usage as they traveled overseas during the Spring Festival
holiday that concluded on Sunday, according to the country’s largest mobile wallet operator.
The age group has recorded the highest growth rate among all demographics tracked by Al
ipay, as more older people embrace digital payment at home and extend such habits overseas.
Meanwhile, those born in the 1990s, who grew up in relative material abundance and are more “digitally native”, formed the ba
kbone of outbound travel this year, data from Tencent’s popular messaging app WeChat showed.
They accounted for 31 percent of users who embarked on overseas trips, the biggest pr
oportion, and paid with WeChat’s embedded wallet, according to data released on Sunday.
Suning.com, the retail unit of Suning Holdings Group Ltd, announced on Feb 12 that it will ac
quire a total of 37 department stores of Wanda Department Store Co Ltd, to enhance its online-and-offline retail businesses.
Considered a key move for Suning to map its retail layout in the country, the acquisition is expect
ed to quickly improve Suning’s offline, or brick-and-mortar, resources and strengthen its mer
chandise supply chain to increase profits of its retail businesses, according to Suning’s statement.
The 37 Wanda Department Store locations, which have a total of more than 4 million registe
red customers, are mainly situated in central business areas in first- and second-tier cities.
The statement said the revenue of Wanda Department Store has seen a steady rise, with a continuous growth in net profits.
The new business unit will add department stores to Suning’s retail empire, which has been focusing mainly o
n home appliances and has now expanded to fast-moving consumer goods as well as maternity and baby products.
Through the deal, Suning.com is also hoping to bring its digital strengths in areas such as big data and artificial intellige
nce to Wanda, in an effort to further update the digital transformation of traditional department stores and enhance shoppers’ experiences.
In celebration of Chinese New Year, from 28th January to 24th February Hakkasan Hanway Place and Hakkasan Mayfair will reinvent the
classic fortune cookie, commissioning renowned author Will Self to pen the fortunes.
The fortunes will be written on a ribbon and placed around the Hakkasan m
acarons, to create the fortune macaron. Instead of housing a traditional fortune, each macaro
n will feature one of Will Self’s 88 witty, satirical and sometimes dark musings on the topics most relevant to m
odern day life in London. The fortune macarons will be available as part of the Chinese New Year set menu and also a la carte.
Will Self is an English novelist and journalist, was a food critic for The Observer, and h
as written for titles including The Guardian, Harper’s and The London Review. Self writes to as
tonish people with his fantastical style, and wrote ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being a Prawn Cracker’, a collection of no
n-traditional restaurant reviews for the New Statesmen. His 2002 novel ‘Dorian, an Imitation’ was long listed for th
e Booker Prize and his novel ‘Umbrella’ shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He is known for his unique style and tone of voi
ce, which will be a defining feature of the Hakkasan fortune macarons. Speaking about the partnership he said。
The water quality of Baiyangdian Lake in Xiongan New Area in north China’s Hebei Province has been significantly im
