The trade volume between China and Arab countries grew 2.3 percent year on year in 2024, said the Ministry of Commerce of China on Friday in Beijing.
Yuan Xiaoming, assistant minister of commerce, released the data at a press conference themed on China-Arab cooperation. "Over the past few years, China and Arab countries have reaped fruitful results in economic and trade cooperation. In 2024, trade between China and Arab countries hit 407.4 billion U.S. dollars, up 2.3 percent year on year, keeping China the Arab world's top trading partner for years running," Yuan said.
Yuan highlighted the cooperation in emerging sectors, saying that people in many Arab countries have welcomed the convenient life thanks to the cooperation with Chinese platforms.
"There are many highlights in cooperation in emerging areas. China and Arab countries have been actively expanding the potential for cooperation in edge-cutting fields including e-commerce, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, green and low-carbon development and financial technology. Chinese companies have built 5G networks in Arab countries for commercial use, raising the information level in those countries. Chinese e-commerce platforms have gradually entered the markets of countries including Morocco, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, delivering one-click convenience to the local people," he said.
China's trade with Arab countries grows 2.3 percent in 2024: official
Smart technologies have reshaped China's ecological and environmental monitoring system, Huang Runqiu, minister of Ecology and Environment, said Thursday in Beijing on the sidelines of the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress(NPC).
"Regarding ecological and environmental monitoring, we have been promoting the digitalization, informatization, and intelligentization of the entire monitoring process in recent years, reshaping the ecological and environmental monitoring system. For instance, in water environment monitoring and sampling, we have used intelligent drones which can quickly locate sampling points, collect samples accurately, return rapidly, and they are safe and reliable, improving work efficiency by over 70 percent. They are particularly advantageous for sampling during flood seasons and in remote areas," Huang told the press.
"In terms of environmental sample analysis, we have developed 'lights-out laboratories' in recent years. As the name suggests, these labs operate without lights and are unattended. Through robotic arms, robots, and intelligent management systems, they achieve full-process automation and intelligence from sample handover, testing, and analysis to report generation. This has significantly enhanced work efficiency, increasing it by more than eightfold compared to traditional labs. More importantly, it reduces human interference, human error, and even data falsification," he said.
Thanks to the improved ecological and environmental supervision capabilities, the number of environmental violation cases nationwide has decreased from 130,000 five years ago to 43,000 last year, representing a decline of 68 percent, Huang said.
The minister said China has already applied environmental DNA technology in the biodiversity monitoring work.
"In the field of biodiversity monitoring, monitoring aquatic organisms remains a weak point. However, significant progress has been made in recent years as we have developed environmental DNA technology. Although this chip is very small in size, it contains DNA detection information for aquatic organisms, including the finless porpoise and the Chinese sucker, from 19 state-controlled sections in the Jiangsu segment of the Yangtze River. The results showed that over the past five years, more than 20 species of aquatic organisms have increased in this river section, fully demonstrating the tangible effectiveness of the ten-year fishing ban in the Yangtze River," Huang said while showing a chip to reporters.
The 14th NPC, China's national legislature, concluded its fourth session on Thursday.
Smart technologies reshape China's ecological, environmental monitoring system: minister
