Indonesia's first locally born baby panda Rio has attracted crowds of people to the Taman Safari Indonesia (TSI) in Bogor, south of Jakarta, since he was officially introduced to the public late last month, with visitors excited to catch a glimpse of the safari's most famous resident.
Rio was born on Nov 27 last year, weighing just 200 grams, but has since developed into a healthy 11 kilogram male as he made his public debut on May 30.
The cub was conceived by Chinese-loaned pandas Cai Tao and Hu Chun, and is Indonesia's first giant panda bred in captivity.
Many Indonesians used to have to travel all the way to China if they wanted to see a baby panda. Now, they are delighted to have a beloved bear right at home.
"I am grateful that Taman Safari Indonesia has been given the opportunity to build good bilateral relations between Indonesia and China. This is an activity that I think has a direct impact not only on people who love pandas, but can also be a learning medium, including for students who today come in large numbers. I am very happy because finally Taman Safari has been able to breed a panda after three failed trials. So, it's all just very touching," said Dr. Missie Gustini, a visitor.
Rio lives in a lavish structure called the Panda Palace along with his parents, who arrived from China in 2017 in an act of "panda diplomacy" which aimed to mark 60 years of ties between Indonesia and China.
Rio is taken as a shortened version of his full name, Satrio Wiratama, which means 'brave' and 'noble warrior'. The team at the safari say this name was chosen to symbolize the conservation partnership between Indonesia and China.
"The main message is about conservation. I think conservation doesn't see countries, doesn't see boundaries. When you talk about conservation, a Chinese animal, we can do conservation in Indonesia. Indonesian animals, you can do conservation in Europe. So, if you're an expert in Europe, you're an expert in Africa, you can contribute to conservation for the whole world. I think having this baby Rio is just, what do you call it, it's kind of opened up the possibilities for conservation efforts all over the world, for all of the species, especially the endangered species all over the world," said Aswin Sumampao, president director of the Taman Safari.
Indonesian-born giant panda cub enjoys popularity after meeting public
Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) enjoyed an "astonishing" market debut on Monday, seeing its shares skyrocket close to 500 percent in a sensational opening day.
CXMT's shares closed at 49 yuan (over 7.20 U.S. dollars) on its Shanghai STAR Market debut Monday, up 465.82 percent from its IPO price of 8.66 yuan, with full-day turnover surpassing 140 billion yuan.
The stock ended its first trading day with a market capitalization of over 3.2 trillion yuan, cementing its position as the largest listed company by market value on the A-share market.
It capped an impressive performance for the firm, which was founded in the sci-tech hub of Hefei of east China's Anhui Province in 2016, and specializes in the manufacture of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips that power mobile phones, PCs, tablets, servers and other consumer products and applications.
Timothy Pope, a Shanghai-based analyst for the China Global Television Network(CGTN), gave his assessment of the chipmaker's immediate market impact.
"CXMT dominated the headlines today, and its debut gave a considerable lift to sentiment-improving risk appetite after a couple of lacklustre weeks. CXMT had created a significant liquidity overhang ahead of its listing, investors raising cash or holding back from buying other shares as they prepared for this debut. But once the market successfully absorbed that enormous new listing, some of that sideline money appears to have returned to other stocks," he said.
"But the CXMT debut itself was astonishing. We use words like 'surge' all the time, and on days like this I regret that because it leaves me sort of without a significantly dramatic word to describe the company gaining almost 500 percent and becoming the Chinese mainland's most valuable listed company on its first day of trade," Pope added.
"CXMT closed 465.8 percent higher, giving it a market valuation of around 3.3 trillion yuan. Now, that does come with an important caveat, however. Only 6.73 percent of the company shares were freely tradable today, and with different groups of shares locked up for periods ranging from six months to three years, it's going to be some time before the market faces sort of meaningful test of that enormous new valuation," he said.
The blockbuster debut caps a historic IPO run with expected total proceeds surpassing 66 billion yuan, making it the largest-ever IPO in China's sci-tech innovation board.
CXMT is expected to generate operating revenue of 110 billion to 120 billion yuan in the first half of this year, with net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company reaching 50 billion to 57 billion yuan, according to the company.
Chinese memory chipmaker CXMT skyrockets to become A-share's most valuable listed company
