Coffee industry becomes new growth driver in northeast China city

The coffee industry has now become a new engine driving economic growth in Yanji, a county-level city in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of northeast China's Jilin Province, thanks to the supportive policies launched by the local government in recent years.

Yanji, with a permanent population of less than 700,000, has seen the number of coffee shops in it steadily increase in recent years. Some coffee practitioners have incorporated local specialties and folk elements into their coffee products and packaging, continuously creating unique coffee products and developing a distinctive coffee culture.

"We often launch innovative coffee products in the form of 'coffee+' combinations, such as Yanbian Asian pear coffee, rice wine coffee, dandelion root tea, and balloon flower root tea, among various other fashionable and folk products that reflect the unique characteristics of Yanbian," said Xu Guangyu, a staff member from a local cafe.

In order to make "coffee" a more prominent city label, Yanji has kept supporting the development of its coffee industry. By leveraging the growing trend in cultural and tourism integration, the city is creating new pathways for this development. It encourages the establishment of coffee shops around tourist attractions, fostering coordinated growth between the coffee industry and local scenic spots.

Accordingly, the local government has managed to accelerate administrative reforms and optimize the business environment for business startups in the city.

"We've launched in an in-depth way a reform of the administrative review and approval procedure, enabling the applicants for business startups to personally complete the filing of the application documentation 'only once', with sustained promotion of whole-process electronized processing of application documentations, reducing the duration of time for completing business startup registration to just one working day," said He Chunyan, deputy director of the Administrative Approval Office of Yanji Municipal Market Supervision Administration.

In the past two years, the number of coffee shops in Yanji has grown from over 500 to more than 1,000.

The rapid development of the coffee industry has attracted many young people to return or stay in their hometowns. Yanji has introduced a package of youth talent policies to offer up to 31 preferential treatments such as subsidies for housing purchases, rentals, and car purchases to attract young people.

"Next, we will comprehensively refine and update the youth talent policies, introducing an upgrade 2.0 edition of the talent policies. This aims to attract more young people to Yanji for employment and business startup, thereby injecting strong momentum into the development of various undertakings in the city," said Liu Qiwen, deputy director of the Yanji Municipal Human Resources and Social Security Bureau.

Coffee industry becomes new engine driving economic growth in northeast China city

Russia on Friday accused Ukraine of launching six separate attacks on its energy infrastructure in a single day, while Ukraine reported ongoing fighting in the Kursk region.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said that Ukrainian strikes had caused significant damage to its natural gas pipelines and power facilities in Bryansk, Tambov, and Lipetsk regions. As a result, many households in these areas experienced disruptions in both gas and electricity supplies. The Ministry also reported that in the past week, Russian forces had seized control of eight settlements. They carried out seven cluster strikes using high-precision weapons and attack drones, targeting key Ukrainian military assets, including airports, aerospace industries, command posts, assembly plants, and drone storage facilities. Ukrainian ammunition depots, explosives production sites, and temporary military deployment locations for both Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries were also targeted.

In an interview on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Ukrainian forces were maintaining their position in the Kursk region, where they were reportedly holding off about 64,000 Russian troops. Despite Russia's attempts to expel them, Zelensky emphasized that Ukrainian forces had not been encircled. He further confirmed that Ukrainian forces were also engaged in operations in other regions of Russia.

Meanwhile, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported on Friday that 156 clashes took place along the front lines in the past day. Ukrainian air forces, missile units, and artillery targeted Russian personnel, military assets, and infrastructure, including drone control sites and command centers.

The Ukrainian military administration in the Dnipropetrovsk region Friday reported a Russian missile struck the central Ukraine's city of Kryvyi Rih, resulting in at least 18 deaths and 56 injuries.

The Russian Ministry of Defense later confirmed that a high-precision missile had been launched at a restaurant in Kryvyi Rih, where a Ukrainian military commander and Western instructors were allegedly meeting.

The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that a high-precision missile had been launched at a restaurant in Kryvyi Rih, where Ukrainian military commanders and Western instructors were allegedly holding a meeting.

Russia accuses Ukraine of attacks on energy facilities