Qingdao, a coastal city in East China’s Shandong province, has completed citywide Covid-19 tests of all its 11 million residents, after a new cluster of infections.
As of 8am on Friday, more than 10.16 million of the collected samples had been tested with no new positive cases, Xue Qingguo, Qingdao’s deputy mayor, said. The results of the remaining samples were due to be released later.
As of Thursday, 13 new confirmed cases had emerged in Qingdao, which has a population of more than 11 million. Inappropriate disinfection in the CT room at the Qingdao Chest Hospital was believed to be responsible, according to the municipal health commission.
Sui Zhenhua, party secretary and director of the municipal health commission in Qingdao, has been suspended while Deng Kai, president of the Qingdao Chest Hospital, was sacked.
World economy
The global economy is expected to contract by 4.4% this year due to the pandemic, the International Monetary Fund said in its latest World Economic Outlook report. Meanwhile, China’s economy will grow by 1.9% this year, 0.9 percentage point above its June forecast, according to the report.
The IMF’s latest forecast for China’s economy is based on the country’s decisive measures to contain the pandemic and its potent stimulus for its economy, said IMF managing director Kristalina Georgieva.
China’s growth was a positive impulse for the world economy, Georgieva said, noting that it was particularly important for countries that export metals and other commodities, as demand from China has been a much needed relief, with commodity prices now going up.
China’s growth is also important for countries that are connected to the Chinese economy through global value chains, as demand from China is an engine for growth there, she said.
US dollar-denominated bonds
China’s Ministry of Finance issued $6 billion of US dollar-denominated sovereign bonds in Hong Kong on Wednesday.
The sovereign bonds came in four tranches, including 1.25 billion three-year bonds, 2.25 billion five-year bonds, 2 billion 10-year bonds and 500 million 20-year bonds.
The issuance marked the fourth consecutive annual issuance since the ministry restarted the issuance of US dollar sovereign bonds in 2017. It reflected China’s determination and confidence to open up at a higher level in an all-round way, deepen integration with international capital markets, and strengthen cooperation with international investors, the ministry said.
Company news
Huawei AirPON, which enables operators to build a fixed and mobile-merged network that improves connections for end-users by reusing mobile base station resources, has been awarded Best Fixed Access Solution at the Broadband World Forum 2020 online award ceremony, Huawei Technologies said.
The achievement marks the second straight year that Huawei has received this accolade, having previously won for its SingleFAN Pro solution. Such consistent industry recognition further cements Huawei’s continued innovation and leadership in the full-fiber broadband domain, it said.
In February 2020, Huawei officially launched the AirPON solution in London, following in-depth analysis of the business trends of fixed-mobile convergence and accelerated fiber network construction. The solution features three key innovations: zero site acquisition, zero fiber splicing, and zero frame freezing. It can help operators address key challenges such as extended payback periods, slow fiber network construction, and unstable user experiences.
The stories were written by Xu Jiangshan and first published at ATimesCN.com. They were translated by Nadeem Xu.