Pre-sale, test-screening box office for Labor Day holiday hits 100 mln yuan

Pre-sale and test screening box office for a total of eight new films during the upcoming Labor Day holiday has totaled 100 million yuan (about 14.09 million U.S. dollars) in China as to the end of Saturday.

The five-day Labor Day holiday starting on May 1 is usually a busy movie screening season in China. Of the eight new movies to be released during the occasion, six are domestic productions.

Hong Kong action crime thriller "Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In" took the lead at the Chinese mainland's daily box office chart, as it grossed 43.38 million yuan (about 6.11 million U.S. dollars) as to 24:00 on Saturday.

Another Chinese action film "Formed Police Unit" themed on overseas peacekeeping mission was in the second place with some 19.54 million yuan (around 2.75 million U.S. dollars).

Japanese animated action film "Spy x Family Code: White" ranks third by amassing 18.85 million yuan (around 2.66 million U.S. dollars). In addition, multiple listed companies participated in production of the new films, and their box office performances are of great importance to the companies, an analyst said.

"The Labor Day holiday is relatively long, which can generate quite good box office revenue from movies. This will set a better tone for these companies' full-year market performance. Of course, for investors, May is also very important for the first half financial report of the year. If there is encouraging box office revenue and industrial performance achieved at this point, it will be great new for the first half financial report, and will also boost the investor confidence and industry's outlook in the second half of the year," said Zhang Yi, CEO and Chief Analyst of iiMedia Research.

With the recovery of the film market, the performance of listed film and television companies has continued to improve.

"The success on a film's box office revenue is almost directly related to the market reputation and share price performance of listed companies. Additionally, investment failures in films would have negative impacts on listed companies' financial expectations and the capital market's confidence in business development. Of course, a good reputation and reviews of the films are helpful as well. For investment companies, it also demonstrates their brand image," said Zhang.

Pre-sale, test-screening box office for Labor Day holiday hits 100 mln yuan

Pre-sale, test-screening box office for Labor Day holiday hits 100 mln yuan

China has invested nearly 900 billion yuan (about 124.43 billion U.S. dollars) to strengthen the protection of key national ecological functional areas, involving 810 counties, covering 4.84 million square kilometers, and accounting for 50.4 percent of China's territorial area.

National-level ecological functional areas serve as important ecological security barriers that support soil and water conservation, wind prevention and sand fixation and biodiversity conservation.

Since 2008, the central government of China has introduced a transfer payment policy for funding key national ecological functional areas.

In a bid to make better use of the funds, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and the Ministry of Finance issued more than 20 measures, covering the monitoring and evaluation of environmental quality, organizational efficiency and implementation of projects.

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment established an integrated ecological environment monitoring network to improve the accuracy of monitoring and evaluation.

For instance, for forests, grassland, waters, and wetlands, experts use high-resolution satellite remote sensing technology to capture images that can forecast ecological trends, while for areas facing immediate threat, experts can use drone systems to investigate.

As high as 85.8 percent of the counties located in China's key ecological functional areas have excellent ecological quality, 22.9 percentage points higher than the national average.

China invests nearly 900 bln yuan to protect key ecological functional areas