China's transport sector grew steadily in the first seven months of 2025, with both freight volumes and passenger flows rising and investment in infrastructure remaining strong, the Ministry of Transport said on Wednesday.
From January to July, Chinese ports handled 10.44 billion tons, or 200 million containers, of cargo, up 4.4 percent and 6.2 percent year on year respectively, Li Ying, a spokeswoman for the ministry, told a press conference in Beijing.
In July alone, port throughput nationwide reached 1.54 billion tons of cargo, a year-on-year growth of 6.9 percent. The throughput of cargo for domestic trade and foreign trade rose by 7.6 percent and 5.5 percent year on year respectively, according to Li.
"In July, the transport sector maintained a steady upward momentum, with freight volumes and passenger flows growing steadily. Overall, the sector handled 33 billion tons of freight from January to July, up 3.8 percent year on year. A total of 39.46 billion cross-regional passenger trips were recorded, up 3.9 percent year on year," Li said.
Meanwhile, construction of China's major transport projects made steady progress in the seven months, with the total fixed-asset investment in the sector reaching 1.95 trillion yuan (about 272.6 billion U.S. dollars), Li added.
In July, fixed-asset investment in the transport sector hit 306.1 billion yuan (about 43.05 billion U.S. dollars), with investment in railways accounting for 77.1 billion yuan, highways accounting for 200.5 billion yuan, waterways attracting 17.3 billion yuan of investment, and civil aviation investment standing at 11.2 billion yuan for the month, Li said.
China's transport sector grows steadily in first 7 months of 2025
A veteran agricultural scientist and deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's national legislature, shared his decades-long mission to reduce the country's reliance on food imports and safeguard its food security by developing high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties.
Gao Derong, a researcher from the Lixiahe Regional Institute of Agricultural Sciences in east China's Jiangsu Province, detailed his relentless pursuit of better wheat varieties while taking a question at a press conference on the sidelines of the ongoing "two sessions", a major event in China's political calendar.
He has dedicated more than 30 years to wheat breeding and succeeded in the fight against Fusarium head blight, a serious fungal disease of cereals, including wheat and other small-grain crops, by implanting "disease-resistant genes" inside seeds.
"After 30 years of countless and repeated trials, we finally developed our first Fusarium head blight resistant variety in 2021. It exhibits strong disease resistance and high yield, with a yield of up to 600 kg per mu (0.066 hectare) in a demonstration plot. This means farmers can use fewer pesticides, produce more wheats, and secure a more stable harvest," said Gao.
Addressing the tight rotation schedule in the rice-wheat rotation system in south China, his team developed time-smart varieties like "Yangmai 25," which can be sown as late as December and still achieve a yield of 6,00 kg per mu.
"We have also cultivated a high-quality weak-gluten wheat variety tailored for biscuits and pastries, reversing China's long-standing reliance on imports. These grain varieties, like elite guard teams, help us hold our rice bowl firmly and contribute to securing our food security," Gao said.
As an NPC deputy, Gao extends his research from the lab to the field, gathering farmers' concerns alongside experimental data.
"My duty as a deputy is also written in the fields. 'Can we construct high-standard farmland at an accelerated pace?' 'Can we have more targeted agricultural subsidies?' These are the voices I often heard in the fields, which I carefully recorded like experimental data and transformed into suggestions," he said. Gao said he will continue working to enable the land to yield more grain, help farmers increase their incomes, and contribute to ensuring national food security.
This year's "two sessions," the annual meetings of China's top political advisory body and national legislature, opened in Beijing Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. As the world's second-largest economy embarks on the inaugural year of its 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) period, these gatherings will serve both as a review of past achievements, and as a strategic compass guiding the nation's future development.
NPC deputy vows to fortify China's food security through seed innovation
