China's C919 features safety, comfort, efficiency

*China's homegrown large passenger plane, the C919. /CFP

With several rounds of test flights, the C919 large passenger aircraft, China's first homegrown trunk-line jet aircraft, finally gained its airworthiness certification from the country's aviation regulator, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

In an exclusive interview with China Media Group (CMG), the chief designer of the C919 said that the design team has been focusing on improving the aircraft's safety, comfort and energy efficiency in terms of technological innovations and design details.

Wu Guanghui, an academician with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, told CMG that improving the safety of the airplane has been the most important issue for the design team.

"First of all, our priority is to make it safer. Speaking of the standards, we are in line with the latest airworthiness regulations."

"We have improved its resistance ability against bird strikes, and the capability of dealing with emergency exiting and even hijacking. You can say that the aircraft has undergone more tests than previous ones, just to ensure safety," said Wu.

Moreover, Wu mentioned that the operating cost is very important for a civil airliner. Thus, the C919 design team adopted a large number of advanced designs and technologies to make it more cost-friendly.

"In our design of aerodynamics, we adopted a new system to save fuel consumption that costs less to operate and maintain. The plane has low resistance, requiring less thrust during flights and ultimately saving more fuel. Its light weight allows the aircraft to carry more cargo. All these design features ensure the aircraft is cost-friendly," said Wu.

Comfortable seating for passengers is another key issue for the C919 designers. "Passengers are usually unwilling to sit in the middle seat of a three-seat row because there is less space. We widened the Middle seat a little bit to make it more comfortable," said Wu. In addition, the C919's positive flight performance reduces fuel consumption and emissions.

The design team used a large number of environmentally friendly materials, incorporating the concept of environmental protection in the development of the aircraft.

"First of all, our performance is good, so we consume less energy and oil. We used to involve chemical milling in the machining process, which is corrosive and may cause pollution. We've switched to all machinery processes and turned to environmental protection," Wu added.

Media source: CGTN

China's automobile manufacturing sector posts revenue growth

China's automobile manufacturing industry posted positive revenue growth in the first eight months of this year, official data showed.

The sector raked in some 5.7 trillion yuan (about $802.84 billion) during the January-August period, up 3.3 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

In the first eight months of this year, the country's automobile output reached 16.97 million units, up 4.8 percent year-on-year. Automobile sales totaled 16.86 million units, rising 1.7 percent compared with the same period of 2021, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Pro-consumption policies helped boost the industry's profit by 100 percent year-on-year in August, NBS data showed.

In the first eight months of 2022, the sector's profit shrank 7.3 percent year-on-year, with the decline narrowing by 7.1 percentage points over the first seven months.

Media Source: China Daily

China's policy bank lends billions more to agriculture

The Agricultural Development Bank of China, the country's rural policy bank, has issued 2.14 trillion yuan (about $301.5 billion) of loans in the first three quarters of this year, up 373.9 billion yuan over the same period last year.

The loans were issued to support agricultural production, ensure the well-being of the farmers, and improve the rural areas to help underpin the country's economic fundamentals, said the bank.

To ensure grain security, the bank has issued loans worth 372 billion yuan to help purchase summer and autumn grain over the past year, up 96 billion yuan year on year.

The bank has also lent 25.6 billion yuan to nurture the seed industry and 234.4 billion yuan to upgrade farmlands so far this year.

Outstanding loans rose by 989.1 billion yuan by the end of September from the beginning of this year, said the bank.

Media Source: China Daily

China to cut housing loan rates for first-home buyers

China's central bank announced on Friday that it would cut the loan interest rates of the housing provident fund for first-home buyers by 0.15 percentage points.

Starting Oct 1, the interest rates for loans that mature within or at five years will be at 2.6 percent, while the over-five-year rate will be slashed to 3.1 percent, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said on its official website.

The loan rates for second-home buyers will remain unchanged, the PBOC said.

The housing provident fund is a long-term housing savings plan made up of compulsory monthly deposits by both employers and employees. It can only be used by employees for house-related expenses.

Media Source: China Daily

China's women's basketball team buoyed by Chinese netizens after claiming silver against US in World Cup

China's women's basketball team won respect and encouragement from Chinese netizens for their sportsmanship demonstrated in the gold-medal game against Team US in the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup on Saturday, after finishing in second place.

The Chinese team lost 61-83 to the US team in Sydney on Saturday. However, finishing as runner-up equaled the Chinese team's best previous result at the World Cup in 1994. The Chinese women's basketball team finished sixth in the 2014 and 2018 games, respectively.

In Friday's semi-final, China defeated host Australia 61-59 and entered the World Cup final for the second time in almost three decades. This is a significant achievement for a team with an average age of less than 26 years old.

The Chinese team won six times in this year's World Cup before Saturday's final. The only defeat was it lost 63-77 to the US during the group stages.

With the absence of top scorer Li Meng, China showed a strong desire to fight until the last minute in the final in the face of the world's top-ranked US women's national basketball team. Team China's guard Wu Tongtong, for example, had to be carried off the court and leave the game in the fourth quarter after her knee was injured badly driving to the basket. Wu helped the team score 13 points in the game.

After the final, the 22-year-old Chinese player Han Xu was selected into the team of the tournament All Star Five. Han appeared, on average, for 21.9 minutes on the court in each game and averaged 12.4 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 1.8 blocks per game. Zheng Wei, the head coach of Team China, was named the best coach of the 2022 FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup.

The gold-medal game between China and the US which coincided with China's National Day was hotly discussed on Chinese social media. The hashtag #China's women's basketball team vs US women's basketball team topped China's Twitter-like social media platform Sina Weibo during the game, with more than 500 million views and over 70,000 posts under the topic as of press time.

Over the past nearly three decades, China and the US have met seven times at the World Cup and the Olympics. The largest margin of victory is 47 points at the 2006 World championships and the smallest margin of victory is 10 points in 1983, news portal Paper.cn reported.

However, in this final, the Chinese women's basketball team did not give up easily, which touched the hearts of Chinese netizens.

Although losing the game, the team was met with praise and encouragement from Chinese netizens as people have walked away from a "medal-oriented" mentality, and started to embrace more the spirit of sportsmanship and "perform your best" spirit.

Many Chinese netizens said they were proud of the players for trying their best and fighting until the last minutes which demonstrated the true sportsmanship.

The mental strength and quality of the Chinese women's basketball team are even more valuable than being the runner-up in the World Cup, they said.

The Chinese women's basketball team is already the champion in our hearts, commented an internet user Chen Haoran.

It is the best gift for the National Day holiday and I feel so proud of you, commented another netizen known as KLZD.

"We should admit the gap in the strength between the two teams. However, the women basketball players have presented an exciting game, playing good defense and never hesitating to attack. I am so proud of them," said one Weibo user known as aidududeROY wang.

After the game, the Chinese Basketball Association on Sina Weibo congratulated China's women's national basketball team on finishing runners up again after 28 years. It also expressed gratitude to every athlete, coach, and staff member in the team for their dedication.

The official Twitter account of the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup also praised the Chinese team as "playing their hearts out and did it in amazing fashion."

Media Source: Global Times