Nigeria Times

By Qiang Wei, People’s Daily

The SCO Industrial and Supply Chains Forum and the 2023 SCO International Investment and Trade Expo kicked off recently in Qingdao, east China’s Shandong province.

A total of 330 enterprises and organizations from 34 countries and regions, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states and regions along the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) routes, showcased more than 10,000 types of imported specialties at the expo. Deals for purchases of goods totaling a billion yuan ($140 million) were inked.

At present, the world is facing a sluggish economic recovery, while global industrial and supply chains are undergoing in-depth adjustments.

In the face of instability and uncertainties in the world economy, SCO countries have strengthened collaboration of industrial and supply chains and promoted effective aggregation of factors and resources, contributing to the resilience and stability of the global chains, said participants in the forum.

Stable and efficient industrial and supply chains are crucial to the SCO regions and the world, noted SCO Deputy Secretary-General Nurlan Yermekbayev.

At this year’s investment and trade expo, a rich array of characteristic food, consumer goods, handicrafts, and agricultural products from different countries were put on display, offering visitors a chance to shop while enjoying a glimpse into foreign customs and traditions.

The exhibition zone of Russia was designed to resemble an elegant and romantic avenue, with a large screen wall displaying the Russian State Historical Museum.

The exhibition area of Egypt was decorated with national elements, including pyramid models, pharaoh statues, as well as live-action scenes of dromedaries and cactuses in the desert, attracting many visitors to take pictures.

Honey, dairy products, jam, and other characteristic products from Kyrgyzstan were also showcased. According to a staff member of the Ministry of Economy and Commerce of the Kyrgyz Republic in China, Chinese consumers have shown a strong interest in products from Kyrgyzstan, but lacked purchasing channels.

A batch of agricultural products from Kyrgyzstan, including honey and cherries, has arrived in China recently, said the staff member, adding that Kyrgyzstan was ready to open an official online store on Chinese e-commerce platform JD.com and planned to open brick-and-mortar stores in Chinese cities including Qingdao and Urumqi, northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

Since the establishment of the SCO in 2001, China’s trade with other SCO member states has been climbing. The trade volume reached $343.3 billion in 2021, a 28-fold growth from 2001.

The China-SCO Local Economic and Trade Cooperation Demonstration Area (SCODA) in Qingdao saw its foreign trade volume hit 36 billion yuan in 2022, up 38.3 percent year-on-year.

The SCODA has launched 31 regular international railway routes connecting China and 54 cities in 23 countries, including SCO members and countries along the BRI routes. In 2022, a total of 279,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of containers were handled, up 5.4 percent from the previous year.  

The forum witnessed the launch of the SCO Comprehensive Service Platform 2.0. As China’s first one-stop public service platform for local economic and trade cooperation among SCO countries, the platform has attracted nearly 5,000 enterprises since its launch.

The 2.0 version focuses on meeting the actual needs of SCO countries, such as import and export processes, local currency settlement, barter trade, and the reciprocal recognition of supervision.

It has innovatively incorporated a good number of systems for services covering SCO cross-border payment and settlement, new forms of cross-border barter trade, aviation logistics, used-car exports, and taxpayer information verification, effectively solving problems including poor cross-border settlement channels between SCO countries in the past.      

As the largest regional cooperation organization in the Eurasian continent with the greatest potential, the SCO has made unique contributions to regional stability and development.

Efforts will be made to leverage platforms including the SCO Industrial and Supply Chains Forum to continuously motivate various parties to deepen pragmatic cooperation, according to Yermekbayev, who noted that regional economic cooperation among SCO countries will yield more fruitful results.

By Zheng Na

China boasts rich resources of intangible cultural heritage. So far, the country has listed 1,557 items as national-level intangible cultural heritage. In particular, 43 of them are on the intangible cultural heritage list of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), making China the most enlisted country in the world.

With an aim to systematically conserve and inherit cultural heritage items, creatively translate them into economic profits and achieve innovative development in the specific field, China today is integrating intangible cultural heritage with cultural products, movies and TV dramas, short videos and new technologies, thus making it a part of the modern lifestyle and bringing it to a new phase of development.

Thanks to the emergence of “China-Chic,” or the rise of China’s native fashion trends over the recent years, products themed with intangible cultural heritage are gaining higher and higher popularity among young people.

For instance, makeup products that come in packages manufactured with the traditional silver forging techniques of the Miao ethnic group have become a hit among both Chinese and foreign consumers; sportswear with traditional Chinese embroideries are sought after by young people; mooncakes and lipsticks launched by the Palace Museum have also become sensational among young Chinese.

According to statistics, there were 32,853 stores related to intangible cultural heritage on the leading Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao last year, up 9.5 percent from 2020, and the transaction volume of intangible cultural heritage-related products increased by 11.6 percent from 2020 on this online marketplace.

Besides, the customer base of cultural heritage-related products has hit 100 million in China, which primarily consists of those born in the 1990s and 2000s.

Kunqu Opera, one of the oldest extant forms of Chinese opera, guqin, a plucked seven-string Chinese musical instrument, as well as other traditional Chinese art forms are also groovy today in China.

In Yushe Entertainment Space at Langyuan Vintage in Beijing, a complex that’s home to bookshops, chic restaurants, and coffee shops that are popular among the young generations, Kunqu Opera-related activities are creating a buzz, and there are even online “battle” games of Kunqu Opera.

Over the recent years, intangible cultural heritage has remained a hot topic in the show business. In particular, documentaries, variety shows, as well as TV dramas and films have made remarkable contributions to the popularization and promotion of intangible cultural heritage, igniting people’s passion to learn and experience intangible cultural heritage items. Among the big names, there are National Treasure, Marvelous Woman, The Story of Minglan, Nirvana In Fire and A Dream of Splendor.

New technologies and media also have significantly contributed to the widespread dissemination of intangible cultural heritage.

The number of short video users in China exceeded 1 billion as of December 2022, accounting for 94.8 percent of all internet users, said an audio-visual industry report released this year.

Since 2019, short videos themed with intangible cultural heritage items such as embroidery, paper cutting, dyeing, shadow play and bamboo weaving have drawn huge clout, said Yang Chenghu, professor with the School of Art and Communication, Beijing Normal University.

The emergence of short video platforms gives inheritors of intangible cultural heritage an opportunity to demonstrate their skills and also a channel to sell related products.

In 2022, videos related to national-level intangible cultural heritage garnered over 372.6 billion views and received 9.4 billion likes on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok. About 1,617 shows were livestreamed by inheritors of intangible cultural heritage each day on the platform on average last year. Moreover, 427 percent more inheritors of intangible cultural heritage received streamer awards.

Livestreaming now serves as a channel from which people learn about the history and stories of intangible cultural heritage. It not only expands the influence of intangible cultural heritage, but also helps inheritors gain more income, which further stimulates their passion for creation and strengthens their determination to pass on traditions.

The arrival of the “metaverse era” is making the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage more digital and tech-ish.

Digital collectibles have become a hot trend in the digitalization of intangible cultural heritage since 2021. According to a report, approximately 4.56 million non-fungible tokens related to intangible cultural heritage were sold in China in 2021, with a total value of more than 150 million yuan ($20 million). Notably, China chic digital collectibles related to intangible cultural heritage were always sold out in seconds after they were launched, which proves the enthusiasm of young generations for intangible cultural heritage-themed digital products.

Experts believe that big data-assisted collection, storage and utilization of information would lead to more efficient spreading of intangible cultural heritage, optimize the channels of the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage, and merge traditional resources and modern technologies, thus creating new opportunities and means to pass on intangible cultural heritage.

By Yu Weiliang, Qiang Yuwen, Fan Haotian, People’s Daily

In the downstream section of the Gezhouba Dam on the Yangtze River Yichang, central China’s Hubei province, a pure electric cruise can be seen for sightseeing services. The vessel, with no pungent smell of diesel fuel or the engine roar, boasts a maximum range of 150 kilometers with a single charge.

The ship has consumed a total of 950,000 kWh of electricity since its maiden voyage in March last year, which is equivalent to a reduction of more than 750 tons of carbon dioxide emissions compared to regular fuel-powered vessels of similar power.

Yichang is located at the juncture of the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River. It is home to the Three Gorges Dam, the world’s largest hydropower project, and the Gezhouba Dam, one of the largest run-of-river hydropower stations in the world.

Each year, around 60,000 vessels pass by the section. Therefore, it is of great significance to protect the ecology of the Yangtze River by making ship trips more environmentally friendly.

Over recent years, Yichang has intensively and continuously promoted green shipping and achieved fruitful results. Ships berthing or waiting for the lock basically achieve zero emission, and shore power has been widely used. Besides, more new energy vessels are manufactured and put into operation.

When the sun just went down, cargo ship Dayang 86 lowered its anchor at an anchorage in Yichang. The ship generated 3 cubic meters of domestic sewage during its week-long voyage.

Captain Li Yongjiang submitted a form of pollutant handover on a mobile application named Jing Xiao Yi, which means “clean Yichang” in Chinese. Just 15 minutes later, a vessel came near his ship and picked up the sewage.

Jing Xiao Yi is an information system for the synergetic governance of pollutants from ships launched by Yichang authorities. With this system, ships, pollutant-picking vessels, transferring vehicles and institutions responsible for final disposal are able to collaborate online, and thus form a closed loop for the disposal of pollutants from ships.

At present, domestic garbage and sewage from ships are received, transferred and disposed of for free. It is as easy as hailing an “online cab” for ships to get their pollutants picked, said Hu Zhaohui, head of the municipal traffic and transport bureau, adding that ships and barges today are handing over their pollutants voluntarily.

At midnight, the Yangtze River Three Gorges 1 moored at a dock of the Three Gorges Dam tourist area after a 2-hour sightseeing tour, where clean shore power was continuously delivered to the “hotel on the river.”

The ship has four battery cabins consisting of lithium iron phosphate battery packs, carrying power equivalent to the total battery capacity of over 120 electric vehicles.

According to Li Xingheng, a shore power technician with a branch of State Grid Corporation of China in Yichang, high-voltage shore power can be turned into low-voltage electricity by transformers on the ship, and the ship can also replenish power at multiple docks in the upper stream.

This new model has solved the high-power charging problem of large pure electric vessels, Li added.

In the past, power generation relied on fuel while ships were berthed, which created air and noise pollution.

Today, Yichang has launched six typical shore supply systems that meet the demand for power consumption of various types of ships with different docking modes. It has also built a cloud networking platform to provide vessels and ports with mobile payment and other convenient services.

Yichang is the first city along the Yangtze River to be completely covered by standardized shore power. So far, shore power has become available at 63 commercial docks and two anchorage sites in the Yichang section, providing a total of 25 million kWh of clean shore power for more than 14,000 vessels.

The consumption of shore power in the section is expected to exceed 7 million kWh this year.

The Yangtze River Three Gorges 1 was built by a local shipbuilder in Yichang, and Three Gorges Tourism, a company based in Hubei province, is one of the investors.

“It has completed nearly 300 trips and carried a total of 280,000 passengers, creating tourism revenue of over 12 million yuan ($1.67 million). The pure electric cruise is operating with promising results,” said Liu Jun, deputy general manager of the company operating the vessel, which is under the Three Gorges Tourism.

According to him, the company invested in two other pure electric cruise ships last year, which are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Yichang enjoys a long history of shipbuilding. It is home to 25 shipbuilders and over 100 shipping companies.

Today, focusing on the development of new and clean energy-powered ships, the city is accelerating the green transition and high-quality development of its shipbuilding industry.

In March this year, China’s first R&D studio for green and intelligent ships was established in Yichang. Six cooperation projects participated by enterprises, universities and research institutions are currently in progress, which aim at breaking the technological bottlenecks in the manufacturing of pure electric cargo vessels.

On May 18, an industrial park for green and intelligent shipbuilding was put into use in the city. With a total investment of 8 billion yuan, the park is attracting green and intelligent shipbuilders as well as relevant supporting enterprises along the industrial chain.

By Jiang Nan, People’s Daily

Today, smart home devices are more and more popularized, bringing much more convenience to people’s daily life. New technologies, investment and business forms in the smart home industry are thus one of the keys to the transformation and upgrading of China’s traditional industries.

New demands of consumers are what encourage traditional industries to make a change.

“We have gradually turned from a manufacturer of traditional lighting products into a provider of comprehensive and intelligent lighting solutions,” said Nan Junxia, head of CHINT, a leading intelligent energy solutions provider in China.

The company has launched smart sockets that are able to directly replace the old ones, as well as smart home control panels and sensors that can be placed anywhere. With the products offered by the company, the brightness and colors of lights can be controlled remotely on mobile phones.

Besides, the company has also developed a home-based intelligent nursing system that monitors the safety of seniors in real time through smart integrated circuits and sensors. The system would inform seniors’ families or medical personnel immediately after it detects tumbles or lasting inactivity.

“Mr. ROKI, stir fry please,” said Lin Xiaojia, user experience engineer with the cooking research center of Robam Appliances, a Chinese firm specialized in manufacturing household kitchen appliances.

Soon, an automatic range hood started working, and the man selected a home-style dish on a color display that read “cloud recipe” and turned on a smart kitchen stove, which automatically adjusted the flame according to the dish Lin had selected. Then an “unattended wok” began stirring the ingredients in it. The temperature in the wok and a timer were displayed on a screen on the cover of the wok.

A major difference between the ROKI digital kitchen appliances and traditional kitchen appliances is the “Mr. ROKI,” an AI assistant that connects different sets in the kitchen and thus creates new scenarios through inter-device collaboration.

In a “future factory” of Robam Appliances in Linping district of Hangzhou, east China’s Zhejiang province, researchers have turned recipes into digital curves based on the variation of ingredients’ mouthfeels and nutrition in different temperatures and under different cooking methods. It is learned that thousands of digital recipes have been developed for ROKI digital kitchen appliances, which not only make cooking much easier for users, but also help them create their own digital recipes that can be shared with more people.

The transformation and upgrading of home appliance manufacturers rely on the common efforts and collaborative innovation of all enterprises along the industrial chain.

Robam Appliances has developed a high-definition camera module with fisheye and wide-angle lens in cooperation with an optical company, which serves as an “eye” for the “unattended woks” and intelligent combi ovens. The camera offers recommendations based on the ingredients it recognizes and observes the variation of ingredients’ colors to avoid overcooking.

Besides, the Chinese manufacturer of household kitchen appliances also joined hands with a tech firm in Shenzhen to develop an infrared thermometer module that controls the switch and ventilation of range hoods and smart stoves based on the variation of temperature.

Sensor, integrated circuits, and controller developers, as well as other enterprises in the upstream of the industry, have reaped fruitful results in their cooperation with manufacturers of smart home devices. Lower-stream enterprises are also working to build relevant platforms, systems and comprehensive solutions.

In an experience center of CHINT, a number of smart home devices are exhibited, including automatic door locks, smart air conditioning systems and smart shower systems.

Enterprises in the industry have independently developed smart home ecology platforms, which are constantly extending smart home products and services relying on internet of things, big data, and smart technologies.

According to statistics, the Chinese smart home market jumped from 260 billion yuan ($36.25 billion) to 580 billion yuan from 2016 to 2021, with an average annual growth of nearly 20 percent. The smart home industry of Zhejiang province alone is expected to hit 500 billion yuan in 2025.

By Xie Weiqun, People’s Daily

Shidanghu is a 44-square kilometer township located at the source of the Huangpu River in Songjiang district of Shanghai. Over the recent years, modern factories have been built one after another in the township, whose development once relied on agriculture. Therefore, Shidanghu today is known as a cluster of “future factories.”

What brought the change to the township is the construction of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor.

G60 is an expressway linking Songjiang in east China and Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan province. The idea of introducing sci-tech innovation and advanced manufacturing enterprises along the expressway, which was later known as the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor, was proposed by Songjiang authorities in May 2016.

Now the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor covers nine cities and districts along the G60 expressway, including Zhejiang’s Jiaxing, Hangzhou, Huzhou, and Jinhua, Jiangsu’s Suzhou, as well as Anhui’s Hefei, Wuhu and Xuancheng.

Over the past five years, the corridor has always been adhering to sci-tech innovation and institutional innovation, and focusing on the integration of industrial, supply, capital and human resource chains. As a result, it has significantly strengthened its capability in allocating resources and factors, and further expanded its influence, achieving a batch of important outcomes.

“We came to Songjiang in 2016 to build our sci-tech innovation ecology. We built an industrial park covering 70,000 square meters, but there was barely any enterprise settling in it. Thanks to the notion of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor, sci-tech innovation factors have gathered in the region. In just a few years, our industrial park has expanded multiple times. Today, it covers over 370,000 square meters and is home to more than 500 enterprises that employ over 5,000 people,” said Wang Jiwu, chairman of Tus-Holdings Co., Ltd.

Around the Rafael Sky City, a landmark construction of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor, 16 cities have set up “innovation enclaves,” which house a number of sci-tech enterprises and talents. These “innovation enclaves” have further reinforced the foundation for sci-tech innovation.

The G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor is not only witnessing a growing number of sci-tech innovation enterprises, but also higher quality of sci-tech programs.

A project of non-human primate clones of monkeys has been launched at the Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology based in the corridor, which helps promote the development of brain-inspired intelligent systems, smart humanoid robots, and other relevant programs. Besides, Chinese tech giant Tencent also set up its Keen Security Lab and YouTu Lab in Songjiang district.

Adopting a joint research mechanism for key technologies, the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor has built a batch of high-level platforms for sci-tech innovation, which led to a number of important original scientific results such as monkey cloning, quantum communication, “artificial sun,” and large silicon wafers.

The G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor has a clear vision – to build itself into an advanced corridor transforming China from a manufacturer to a creator, a pilot corridor driven by both sci-tech and institutional innovation, and a pioneering corridor integrating industrial and urban development.

To realize the vision, the nine cities and districts along the G60 expressway are working vigorously in collaboration to achieve synergetic development.

They set up a special group and a joint conference mechanism to better construct the corridor. Besides, a joint office was established in Songjiang, where personnel from the nine cities and districts work together to promote synergetic development. These efforts have made industrial division clearer and further facilitated the collaboration among the nine cities and districts.

Xu Weihua, vice mayor of Hangzhou, noted that Hangzhou’s Zhejiang University, relying on the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor, has built a batch of advanced innovation platforms in cooperation with Suzhou, Jiaxing, Jinhua and Hefei, including a Shanghai-Hangzhou innovation center of the Dream Town.

Cities along the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor have been deeply integrated with each other industry-wise, Xu said.

To distribute sci-tech resources in a market-oriented and law-based manner remains a major character of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor.

For instance, a project of designing and developing a medium-power new energy simulation test platform was recently traded at a sci-tech outcome auction.

“An important goal of us is to maximize the value of technologies and ensure their market-oriented circulation,” said Guo Shuqing, deputy head of the joint office of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor and director of Songjiang district’s sci-tech development office.

To accelerate the commercialization of innovation results and ensure the flow of innovative factors has become a common action of the nine cities and districts, Guo noted.

So far, the nine cities and districts have established 11 demonstration bases and 36 matrixes for the commercialization of technological outcomes, as well as 43 roadshow consortiums under the framework of the G60 Science and Technology Innovation Corridor. Besides, they have also set up an online factor matchmaking platform and an alliance for promoting the commercialization of technological outcomes.

By Ye Xiaonan, Wang Shengying

Over recent years, parks across China have innovatively upgraded themselves, improving the quality of green space and introducing more facilities, which lifts both urban appearance and people’s living quality.

According to statistics, from 2012 to 2021, green coverage of China’s built-up urban areas improved from 39.22 percent to 42.06 percent, and the per capita area of park greenery increased from 11.8 square meters to 14.78 square meters.

The Changqing Park in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei province, employs a 5G intelligent management system that monitors air quality, water quality and soil moisture in real-time, and then utilizes the data for park maintenance. It is the first park in Wuhan to employ such a system.

Besides, the park also implements water purification, microclimate control and biodiversity maintenance measures to conserve its wetland through digital and intelligent means, so as to present vital and beautiful landscapes.

A sports center built in the Chuangxin Park in Guangzhou, south China’s Guangdong province, has become a hot destination for nearby residents to relax.

“We always visited the park to watch the flowers. After upgrading the park, we can also do fitness activities while enjoying the beautiful view. My child loves the basketball courts in the park very much,” said a citizen surnamed Li.

To meet the fitness demands of people living nearby, the sports center has newly built a 1,200-square-meter sports area and a soccer pitch that covers about 5,000 square meters. It also offers a variety of fitness equipment and recreational facilities.

In a park in Fuqing, southeast China’s Fujian province, a fitness trail is attracting a large number of children. When movement is sensed by devices along the trail, various moving images are projected on the trail with lights and music, creating an interesting and magical interactive scene for children visiting the park, especially at night.

Parks across the country have utilized idle space during upgrading to meet citizens’ demands and enrich their experiences.

For instance, Qixia township, southwest China’s Chongqing municipality has established pocket parks and mini parks on unoccupied leftover land. Small as they are, these parks come with green belts and benches, as well as sports fields, cultural activities square, kid’s playgrounds and fitness areas. They are a great destination for fitness and leisure for surrounding residents.

“It used to be a waste ground, but now a clean and comfortable square has been built with basketball courts and fitness areas. We dance in the park every day,” said resident Xiao Benfang, thumbing up to a park close by.

Introducing the cultural and historical elements is also important for park upgrading.

In April this year, a park at the source of the Grand Canal, a vast waterway connecting the northern and southern parts of China, officially opened to the public in Beijing’s Changping district after renovation. It well carries the cultural characteristics of the Baifu Spring, a water source of historical significance for China’s Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

So far, the park has received a total of over 160,000 visits.

“The environment in this park is fantastic after renovation. It makes the site of the Baifu Spring known to more people,” said citizen Cui Yuanwei. She often takes a walk in the park to enjoy the beautiful view and experience the traditional culture of Beijing.

“Changping district will launch study tours, free lectures and other activities on water conservancy popularization. It will also host book clubs, forums and salons to better spread the culture of the Grand Canal,” said an official with the district.

The Dong’an Park in Shanghai, which is adjacent to the Wanping Theater, a historical facility built in 1988, has well integrated itself with opera culture. It has a “natural stage” consisting of two Chinese-style bamboo pavilions on the bank of the park’s lake and a waterside trail connecting them, while the open space on the bank of the lake serves as a great spectators stand.

Insiders noted that the upgrading of public space strengthens the cultural vitality of cities and shapes new lifestyles of citizens and tourists. In the future, there will be more public cultural spaces in parks to lift the urban image and record the urban culture.

By Guan Kejiang, Shen Xiaoxiao, Zhang Jie, People’s Daily

Thanks to the establishment of a China-Indonesia economic and trade cooperation zone, Bahodopi village in Morowali Regency, Central Sulawesi province of Indonesia, has turned from a small fishing village with just a few thousands of residents into a prosperous town with a population of more than 200,000, where row upon row of fruit, garment and grocery shops line the main street bustling with motorcycles and pedestrians.

The Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) project was signed under the witness of Chinese President Xi Jinping and then Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono when Xi was paying a state visit to Indonesia in October 2013.

The construction of the industrial park has brought the economic development of Morowali Regency onto a fast track.

Former speaker of the Indonesian House of Representatives Marzuki Alie noted that the IMIP vividly demonstrates the high-quality co-construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) between Indonesia and China, and it has brought tangible benefits to the local people.

Machines are always grumbling in the industrial park, where heavy-duty trucks, tower cranes and barges work in close cooperation in a well coordinated manner.

It is learned that some 40 enterprises have opened in the industrial park, which are mainly engaged in the nickel-iron, stainless steel and new energy vehicle battery material industries. The industrial park has grown into an important production base of stainless steel of the world, with total agreed investment of over $15 billion.

“I’ve been working here for almost 10 years. Every day the industrial park looks different,” said Miss Marwati, an Indonesian employee with the comprehensive management department of the IMIP.

Marwati quit her job in Jarkata in 2013 after she learned that a China-invested industrial park would be built in her hometown. Today, she is already a key employee of the comprehensive management department, which she attributes to the broad platform offered by the IMIP and the assistance from her Chinese colleagues.

“I’ll make every effort to do a good job and work with my colleagues to develop the industrial park. I believe our life will only get better,” she said.

Taslim, the head of Morowali Regency, noted that the regency owns rich resources of nickel mines, and the IMIP has turned these mines into projects that bring tangible benefits to the people.

According to him, the fiscal revenue of the regency has doubled since 2018 to reach 384 billion rupiah ($25.6 million).

“With this money, we are allowed to expand our investment in education and public services to improve the living standard of the people,” Taslim said.

While pursuing its own development, the IMIP is actively fulfilling its social responsibility. It has built 42 kilometers of medium-voltage power transmission lines that enables 24-hour power supply for surrounding villages, which put an end to the old days when sunset equaled to complete darkness in local communities. The industrial park helped local communities build kindergartens, middle schools, soccer pitches and vocational schools. Besides, it has also launched tree planting and coral reef transplanting and conservation activities, planting over 11 hectares of mangrove trees and restoring more than 270 hectares of vegetation on mines.

Today, Morowali Regency is one of the most dynamic places in Indonesia when it comes to attracting investment and creating jobs.

The Sari Rasa Restaurant near the IMIP is a vivid example. It was still a small restaurant in 2018, but today it has turned into a gigantic complex comprising a ship-shaped giant log cabin whose facade is decorated with colorful wood carvings, a two-storey B&B hotel, a much bigger restaurant and a starred hotel under construction.

Marta, the owner of the restaurant, told People’s Daily that Chinese enterprises have boosted local economy, which also gave a leg up to her business.

“My dreams years ago are all realized,” she said.

She’s now planning to cooperate with other businesses to jointly improve the public environment, so residents in the community would live better.

“This is my new dream,” Marta explained. Everyone has a dream. As the BRI grows from a seed of dreams into a luxuriant tree and becomes a path of opportunities and common prosperity, more and more people from participating countries will see their

By Dou Hanyang, People’s Daily

Relying on its advantages in digitalization, Zhejiang province in east China has been vigorously developing future farms, which not only promotes the progress of intelligent agriculture, but also injects new impetus into the modernization of agriculture and rural areas.

In Nanxun district of the province’s Huzhou, fully-equipped demonstration parks have been built for fruit farmers, which provide planting functions including production demonstration, skill training and product exhibition.

In Ninghai county of Ningbo, Zhejiang, the living environment of aquatic animals in fish farms can be optimized through big data monitoring, and every breeding process is backed by intelligent technologies.

In silk farms of Shengzhou, Shaoxing of Zhejiang province, silkworms don’t feed on mulberry leaves but a unique type of fodder that enables them to spin cocoons.

Future farms systematically optimize the agricultural production management, operation model, and distribution system of agriculture with technological and institutional innovation. They are varied with different features in the farming, animal husbandry and fishery sectors.

Compared with traditional agricultural production, future farms rely on technology and bring out the full potential for the development of modern agriculture. They have higher requirements for mechanization, digitalization and intelligentization.

For instance, by employing artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and biotechnologies, a ranch in Zhejiang’s Haiyan county has achieved unattended operation, targeted feeding and intelligent environmental control.

Future farms are not only partial renovation of production and management technologies, but also comprehensive optimization of agricultural production models. Supported by digital technologies, such farms has distinctive advantages of intensive management of agricultural factors, intelligent and eco-friendly production, efficient management and diverse functions.

Future farms lay more emphasis on smoothing supply chains, so as to reshape the agricultural industry system and production models. They could be held by enterprises, villages or townships, with production and management models according to actual demands, which helps gather more social resources and thus achieve concentrated development.

In Nanxun district, a future farm was jointly built by a specialized company and local major growers. The company offers the grower one-stop services including plowing, planting, management, harvesting, storage, milling and sales. It also provides the latter with agricultural machinery services priced lower than the market and purchases their crops at a price that is 10 percent higher than the minimum level of the country.

As a result, the growers have seen their income go up by 200 yuan ($27.99) per mu (666.7 square meters), which has increased the collective income of the village by 376,000 yuan.

This new model, which combines villages, agriculture companies and farmers, has optimized land resources, equipment, technologies, human resources and other production factors. By incorporating more farmers into the industrial chain, it aims at win-win cooperation and helps achieve the common prosperity of farmers.

Future farms, by optimizing the organization of production, promote agricultural upgrading and offers new governance experiences for the development of the industry.

The regulation on animal epidemic prevention issued by Zhejiang province has absorbed the relevant experiences gained during the construction of future farms, including animal immunization, quarantine and harmless treatment.

This not only helps improve the digital management of animal epidemic prevention, but also sets a good example for other regions in developing intelligent agriculture.

Over recent years, China has deeply integrated the Internet of Things, big data, cloud platforms and other new technologies with agricultural development. The exploration of future farms has opened up new prospects for innovative agricultural development.

Accelerating the application of big data in agriculture and employing digital technologies in every link of agricultural development will promote the progress of intelligent agriculture, injecting new impetus into farmers’ income, rural revitalization and the modernization of agriculture and rural areas.