Day: December 20, 2022

Liu Chunxi, Executive President of Yili Group, shared the company’s wide-ranging biodiversity conservation efforts at the conference. As a result, Yili was the sole dairy enterprise included in the New Deal for People and Nature: Case Book on Business Actions in Biodiversity in China.

The “Yili model” of biodiversity conservation

As the first Chinese company to sign the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Business and Biodiversity Pledge, Yili has pioneered a comprehensive model of biodiversity conservation, featuring disclosure, management and popularization. The company has published the Annual Report on Biodiversity Conservation over the past five consecutive years, sharing its experiences and results with the public.

The Yili Sustainable Development Committee investigated all elements of production and operation processes in order to identify critical attributes that are closely related to biodiversity. The company has identified six focus areas for biodiversity conservation in whole life-cycle approaches: habitat preservation, climate change response, species diversity conservation, sustainable resource use, environmental management, and ecological conservation advocacy.

Furthermore, Yili has shared its expertise with its upstream and downstream partners. In one example, the Group promoted an integrated agricultural system in Ar Horqin Banner, Inner Mongolia. As a consequence, the plant covering of this core grassland region has expanded from less than 10% in 2008 to more than 95%, effectively converting what was once a desert into an oasis.

Our homeland: a world living in harmony with nature

Under the “Yili Homeland Initiative” aimed at safeguarding the future of life, Yili has collaborated with WWF and the China Green Foundation on grassland protection, wetland protection in Northeast China, and habitat preservation for Asian elephants. Through the initiative, Yili has planted 100,000 saxaul trees in the Alashan Desert in Inner Mongolia, recorded 50,123 waterbirds at the Xianghai Wetland covering an area of about 4,050 mu (c. 270 hectares) in western Jilin Province, restored 50,000 square meters in habitats for Asian elephants in Yunnan Province, and supported coral reef conservation in the Komodo National Park of Indonesia.

During the first session of COP15 in 2021, Yili brand Satine launched limited-edition products themed on biodiversity conservation, with designs featuring animals, plants, forests, oceans, wetlands, and grasslands to raise public awareness of biodiversity conservation.

Yili releases the first NFT-edition Biodiversity Conservation Report in China at the second COP15 session, uploading Yili’s actions and results in biodiversity conservation into the Metaverse. By leveraging cutting-edge technology, Yili aims to encourage the next generation to become involved in the effort to protect our homeland.

Renowned ecologist Dr. Thomas Lovejoy, the “godfather of biodiversity”, once said that “the biological diversity of this planet has been really hammered, and this is really our last chance to address all of that.” A global joint effort is absolutely necessary for the protection of biodiversity and Yili, as a leading company in the global dairy business, is dedicated to increasing its contribution to biodiversity conservation, hand-in-hand with partners all around the world.

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This strategy is becoming more prominent as the country has loosened up its measures against the virus, which will help balance the epidemic control and social livelihoods.

The focus of the policies against COVID-19 should shift from “avoiding the spread of infections” to “preventing severe infections”, according to Zhong Nanshan, China’s top specialist in epidemiology and respiratory disease at a medical conference on December 9. He stressed that full vaccination plays a crucial role amid the country’s newly-implemented optimized measures.

Zhong said the best way to strengthen people’s immune system against COVID-19 is to receive a different vaccine as the second booster–which is developed by a different technology–to get maximum protection.

R&D started early

China has developed over a dozen COVID-19 vaccines. It made substantial progress of vaccine development in five different technologies including inactivated vaccine, viral vector vaccine, recombinant protein vaccine, live attenuated influenza vaccine and nucleic acid vaccine.

The country kick-started developing vaccines as early as the beginning of 2020 when it successfully isolated the first novel coronavirus strain amid the first wave of outbreak. It rolled out its first COVID-19 vaccine for public under conditional use on December 31, 2020, less than a year after the outbreak.

Three years into pandemic, China has approved 13 COVID-19 vaccines, including five inactivated vaccines, five recombinant protein vaccines, two viral vector vaccines and one live attenuated influenza vaccine. In terms of the receiving method, 11 of those are injections, one is inhalable and one a nasal spray.

The unconventional inhalable vaccine and the nasal spray have “simulated the natural infection”, according to Zhu Tao, co-founder and chief scientific officer of CanSino Biologics Inc, where the drug induced a systemic protection, forming a first-line immune barrier to prevent the invasion of the virus in the respiratory tract.

The multiple vaccines came in handy as the nation launched its campaign for people to get the second booster. According to the plan announced by National Health Commission (NHC) on December 13, 2022, eight vaccines are eligible in the plan as the second booster since they are different vaccine types from the two inactivated vaccine from Sinopharm and Sinovac and one recombinant vaccine from CanSino–the majority of Chinese people received as their previous vaccination choices.

The protection against COVID-19 is “significantly boosted” after two different types of vaccines, Zhong said at the conference.

During the three years, China successfully carried out the vaccination to protect its people with the support of its advanced vaccine development while the virus has evolved along with many of its variants raging around the world.

By far, three of China-developed vaccines have been approved for emergency use by the World Health Organization (WHO). China also has the most inoculation plans for its domestically developed COVID-19 vaccines that are based on inactivated virus, viral vector and recombinant protein. A China-developed mRNA COVID-19 vaccine was granted permission for emergency use in Indonesia this September.

Enhancing vaccination of the elderly

China has been ramping up the vaccination among the elderly for boosted protection in anticipation of waves of COVID-19 infections as they are at the high risk of developing severe symptoms once infected.

As of November 28, 2022, 86 percent of those aged over 60 have received full vaccination while only about 65 percent of people aged over 80 completed full vaccination. About 25 million people aged over 60 haven’t received vaccines yet.

Xia Gang, an official at the National Administration of Disease Prevention and Control said the reasons behind it are because the elders lack the awareness and have concerns over the vaccine shots.

Zheng Zhongwei, head of vaccine research and development team of NHC explained in an interview “the safety of China’s COVID-19 vaccine is equally safe to other existing vaccines,” adding that data shows the adverse reactions rate of the seniors “can be even a bit lower than that among the young people.”

China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has had administered nearly 3.46 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines nationwide and provided over 2 billion doses worldwide.

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-12-19/New-Approaches-How-China-pushes-COVID-19-vaccine-R-D-and-inoculation-1fTyJSviqbe/index.html

China’s annual Central Economic Work Conference, held in Beijing last week, demanded making economic stability a top priority and pursuing steady progress for 2023.

And analysts believe that China’s economy will rebound and continue to be a reliable and important driving force of the global economy in 2023.

Many local governments arranged charter planes to send business delegations to meet overseas customers, stimulating enterprises to revive business.

Zhang Chunlong, a researcher at the Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, emphasized that regaining order is important, but what is more important is recovering economic confidence and vitality.

“We need to accelerate domestic and international economic circulation and development.”

Keeping enterprises operational

In the past three years, the Chinese governments at all levels adopted a series of policies to keep enterprises operational amid recurrent COVID-19 waves.

To protect local chipmakers in eastern metropolis Shanghai, the municipal government allowed them to operate under a “closed-loop” system.

Chip manufacturers there ensured normal outputs despite a COVID-19 outbreak that started on March 28, when the city began to witness a rising number of Omicron infections.

Hua Hong Semiconductor Limited, China’s second-largest chip producer, has accommodated more than 6,000 workers spread across five factories in Shanghai since March 27.

Wang Lijing, a Hua Hong worker, told China Media Group (CMG) in April that he’s been staying in the factory for the past two weeks.

A Shanghai shipyard also resumed production on April 23 and delivered the world’s largest Very Large Ethane Carrier (VLEC) on May 16.

For epidemic prevention and control, the shipyard set independent ventilation systems requiring on-board staff who tested positive for the coronavirus or confirmed as cases of COVID-19 infections to be under quarantine immediately to curb possible further spread of the virus.

Zhang Jian, deputy general-manager of the Jiangnan Shipyard, told CMG, “In the first stage, we resumed the normal delivery process at the wharf, and we plan to reopen all shipyard production lines by the end of May.”

With effective COVID-19 measures, China’s BYD dethroned Elon Musk’s Tesla as the world’s biggest electric vehicle (EV) producer by sales in the first half of 2022 with 641,000 sold vehicles.

Jeff Chung, an auto analyst with Citigroup, termed BYD’s sales growth “impressive.”

Chinese enterprises ‘go abroad’

As China further eased COVID-19 restrictions in December, cities dispatched delegations to overseas markets for the first time in three years, to promote trade and secure deals.

East China’s Zhejiang Province took the lead in recovering foreign trade and organized a group of around 100 delegates representing 50 enterprises to join in the 36th Asia Fashion Fair in Tokyo, Japan.

“A meeting in person is better than a thousand emails,” Li Lin, deputy director of Foreign Trade Development Office, Zhejiang Provincial Department of Commerce, told CMG.

At the same time, cities in east China’s Jiangsu Province, including Suzhou and Wuxi, southwest China’s Sichuan Province and south China’s Guangdong Province also sent delegations abroad for new opportunities.

“Going abroad is a must,” said Wang Yuanpei, general manager of Wuxi Jiejin Precision Machinery Co., Ltd.

“International markets have experienced tremendous changes over the past three years and we are eager to communicate with our clients face-to-face to consolidate our relations.”

Foreign companies’ confidence in China

Foreign enterprises say they still find China an attractive destination for investment despite of COVID-19.

The 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China has further boosted foreign enterprises’ confidence in the market, according to a survey released on October 27 by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT).

Among the over 500 foreign enterprises surveyed, 96.7 percent affirmed China’s development achievements over the past decade and 96.9 percent expressed stronger confidence in the Chinese market.

In Q1 of this year, roughly 90 percent of foreign-funded enterprises were satisfied with China’s policies concerning market access, promotion of market competition, access to business premises and financial services.

Also in 2022, China’s leading automaker First Automotive Works and German automaker Audi launched a project to produce pure electric vehicles in the northeast Chinese city of Changchun, with a total investment of more than 30 billion yuan ($4.7 billion).

Dr. Juergen Unser, president of Audi China, told CGTN that “the decision is very important to go with our trusted partner FAW into the Jilin Province.”

“It clearly demonstrates our continuous commitment to the e-transformation of the Chinese automotive industry.”

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-12-20/New-Approaches-How-China-stimulates-enterprises-to-revive-business-1fUEI1oqPM4/index.html