High-speed passenger ship newly put into service in Guangxi for Spring Festival travel rush

A high-speed passenger ship has been newly put into operation in south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, as part of efforts to facilitate the surge in passenger traffic during the annual Spring Festival travel rush.

On Thursday, the Beiyou 36 passenger ship departed from Beihai International Port and headed for Weizhou Island in Beihai, Guangxi.

The 1,200-seat high-speed passenger ship has a total length of 71 meters, a designed speed of 29 knots, and a maximum speed of over 32 knots.

It was deployed to help alleviate pressure on the coastal ferry route driven by booming demand for seaside tourism and family visits during the 40-day travel rush, also known as chunyun, which runs from Feb 2 to March 13 this year.

According to the forecast from the Guangxi Maritime Safety Administration, the Beihai to Weizhou Island route is expected to handle 900,000 passenger trips throughout the chunyun period.

Chinese stocks closed lower on Friday, with the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index down 0.25 percent to 4,065.58 points.

The Shenzhen Component Index closed 0.33 percent lower at 13,906.73 points.

The combined turnover of these two indices totaled 2.15 trillion yuan (about 308.95 billion U.S. dollars), down from 2.18 trillion yuan on the previous trading day.

Robotics and solid-state battery stocks led the gains, while shares related to tourism and AI applications suffered major losses.

The ChiNext Index, tracking China's Nasdaq-style board of growth enterprises, lost 0.73 percent to close at 3,236.46 points Friday.

The STAR Composite Index, which reflects the performance of stocks on China's sci-tech innovation board, closed 0.34 percent lower at 1,753.61 points on Friday.