The 28th Beijing-Hong Kong Economic Cooperation Symposium opened in Hong Kong on Wednesday, highlighting closer economic ties between the two cities as they seek to deepen collaboration in global markets.
Under the theme "Beijing Hong Kong Strategic Partnership for Global Connectivity," the event saw the signing of 29 cooperation projects across 11 sectors including technology services, business services, finance, and culture and tourism.
The total potential value of the agreements reached nearly 56 billion yuan (about 7.8 billion U.S. dollars).
During the first nine months of this year, two-way trade between Beijing and Hong Kong reached 129.99 billion yuan (around 18.3 billion U.S. dollars), up 81.4 percent from a year earlier, official data showed.
Beijing-Hong Kong economic forum opens as ties between cities strengthen
The three astronauts aboard China's Shenzhou-23 spaceship have entered the country's Tiangong space station and met with their astronaut colleagues early Monday morning, as they now begin an in-orbit crew handover.
Mission commander Zhu Yangzhu and fellow astronauts Zhang Zhiyuan and Lai Ka-ying successfully entered the station's core module Tianhe after the spaceship made a fast automated rendezvous and docked with the Tianhe module at 02:45 (Beijing Time) on Monday.
The three Shenzhou-21 crew members opened the hatch at 05:13 (Beijing Time) and greeted the new arrivals, according to the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA).
The six astronauts then took group pictures for the eighth in-orbit get-together in China's aerospace history.
Notably, one of the Shenzhou-23 crew members is set to undertake a year-long stay aboard the space station, double the usual duration of previous Shenzhou missions.
The Shenzhou-23 spaceship, atop a Long March-2F carrier rocket, blasted off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 23:08 (Beijing Time) on Sunday.
Shenzhou-23 marks the 40th flight of China's manned spaceflight program and the seventh manned flight mission since the Tiangong space station entered its application and development phase in late 2022.
Shenzhou-23 astronauts enter Tiangong space station, meet Shenzhou-21 crew
