China witnessed a surge in both inbound and outbound tourism during the just-ended five-day May Day holiday.
The number of tourists visiting Southeast Asian countries that provide visa exemptions for Chinese nationals, including Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia, increased over 80 percent compared to the previous year.
In addition to Southeast Asia, other Asian countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Kazakhstan, and Qatar had also emerged as popular destinations for Chinese travelers during the holiday, which concluded on Sunday.
Tourists from small and medium-sized cities in China showed a strong willingness to travel abroad, with the number of outbound tourists from third and fourth-tier cities surging by 55 percent compared to the same period of last year, higher than the national growth rate.
In terms of inbound tourists, the majority of them came from Southeast Asian and European countries that enjoy visa-free entry policy, including Thailand, Malaysia, the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland.
"With more countries being covered by visa-free entry policy, the number of inbound tourists has jumped 76 percent year on year, injecting new and strong vitality to the domestic tourism market," said Wang Jibin, general manager of the Big Data Department of the China Mobile Information Technology Center.
Among the Chinese cities, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Nanning, Shanghai, and Chengdu were top destinations for tourists from Southeast Asian countries, while European and American tourists preferred visiting first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.
China witnesses surge in cross-border trips during May Day holiday
Over 70 percent of the projects funded by China's additional one-trillion-yuan treasury bonds issued late last year have started construction, according to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) on Saturday.
So far, 15,000 projects funded by the issued treasury bonds have been implemented, with 11,000, or 72 percent of them having started construction, said Hu He, chief of the General Office of NDRC's Investment Division, adding that efforts will be made to ensure that all the remaining projects will be in construction before late June.
"Among them (the funded projects), those for post-disaster reconstruction have seen rapid progress. Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei have activated 95 percent of these projects, and a batch of post-disaster reconstruction projects for improving the people's wellbeing such as schools, hospitals, water supply facilities and roads, have basically been completed, and are ready for timely use," said Hu.
Late last year, China issued an additional one-trillion-yuan treasury bonds, mainly covering projects of eight key areas including those for post-disaster construction, enhancing north China and other regions' capacity for post-disaster reconstruction, disaster prevention and mitigation, and helping the affected regions restore their basic production and living conditions and economic development to the pre-disaster level.
"The additional treasury bonds issued in 2023 strengthened support for enhancing the capacity for post-disaster reconstruction, disaster prevention, mitigation, and relief, raising the support standards for the projects all at once, thus greatly easing the local government's financial pressure. The measure is both aimed at helping the affected population to restore as fast as possible the normal working and living conditions and enhancing the capacity for disaster prevention and relief in the long run, so as to better protect people's lives and property in the future," said Hu.
China's treasury bonds-assisted civil projects well progressing: official
