Beijing's major streets and ring roads have been coated with blooming pink Chinese roses, adding more colors to the national capital with a pleasant view.
Roses grow along the second, third and fourth ring roads -- the main arteries of Beijing. The city's greening department says it selected a special variety for the traffic-heavy roads.
"The variety selected for the Guomao bridge area is Yueding, a new strain we cultivated on our own in Beijing. This strain of rose is prominent in its improvement the rose's traits of vehicle exhaust-, drought-, and heat-resistance, and its flowering period is longer with greater flower volume," said Ji Peng, deputy director of the Urban Greening Division of Beijing Municipal Forestry and Parks Bureau.
The pink Chinese rose Yueding's flowering period lasts from early May to mid-November, up to 200 days.
To guarantee the growth and ultra-long flowering period of the roses, the greening department has installed smart irrigation systems in bridge areas, with flower boxes equipped with precision drip irrigation devices that automatically adjust water volume and irrigation time according to weather conditions.
The Chinese rose is the city flower of Beijing and has become an iconic flower for the city's ecological landscape.
Currently, Beijing has grown nearly 2,000 Chinese rose varieties, including some 200 self-bred varieties, and has built rose landscape belts stretching over 1,000 kilometers.
"In the process of building the capital into a garden city, we focus on creating greening scenes around people's living quarters. Different areas are decorated with different colors to match their tone, allowing people to have refreshed feelings about the surroundings when they go from place to place. This is also to keep citizens in a pleasant mood when they are commuting to and from work," Ji said.
Blooming Chinese roses decorate Beijing's major roads
The oil price shock triggered by the war in the Middle East could reduce euro-area GDP growth by around 0.4 percentage points over the first year following the shock, according to a European Central Bank (ECB) study released on Wednesday.
Since the outbreak of the war in late February, disruptions to oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz and reduced oil supply from the Middle East have pushed crude prices sharply higher, said the study.
It added that the increase in oil prices triggered by the current shock has so far been larger than that observed after the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, although it remains smaller than the rise seen during the Gulf War in the early 1990s.
The ECB said higher oil prices are likely to weigh on the euro-area economy through rising production costs, lower household purchasing power, weaker global demand and heightened uncertainty.
Based on historical evidence, the ECB estimated that a geopolitical oil supply shock that raises real oil prices by 10 percent could reduce euro-area GDP growth by around 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points in each of the three years following the shock.
The study found that the impact on investment is likely to be more pronounced than that on private consumption. According to the ECB, heightened geopolitical uncertainty may prompt firms to delay expansion plans, equipment purchases and hiring decisions, dampening investment activity and amplifying the impact on economic growth.
The ECB noted that the euro area's dependence on oil has declined over time, but the response of investment to geopolitical oil supply shocks appears to have remained broadly stable.
The study cautioned that the overall impact of the current shock remains highly uncertain and will depend on the magnitude and persistence of the oil price increase. A prolonged period of elevated oil prices, broader supply-chain disruptions or spillovers into gas markets could further intensify downward pressure on euro-area growth.
Middle East oil shock could cut euro-area growth by 0.4 percentage points in first year: ECB
