UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres arrived in Shanghai on Thursday to attend the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) and High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance.
He was greeted by China's permanent representative to the United Nation and senior officials from the Shanghai municipal government at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
Guterres has repeatedly called for stronger global governance of artificial intelligence. In recent years, the United Nations has established two key mechanisms in this regard, namely the Global AI Governance Dialogue and the International Scientific Panel on AI. These platforms provide important opportunities for countries to enhance communication, build consensus, and expand cooperation.
China firmly upholds the international system centered on the UN and adheres to a people-centered, AI-for-good approach to strengthen the governance of AI rules within the UN framework.
Marking its eighth year, the WAIC, scheduled for July 17 to 20 this year, has solidified its role as a premier global platform for artificial intelligence. The event will witness over 140 forums and a massive exhibition displaying more than 3,000 cutting-edge products. It aims to include a comprehensive ecosystem, linking global thought leaders with groundbreaking technology to forge industry consensus and offer solutions for global governance.
UN chief arrives in Shanghai to attend 2026 World AI Conference
Prices for existing homes in China's four first-tier cities, namely Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, continued their upward momentum for a fourth consecutive month in June, according data from the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday.
In June, existing home prices in first-tier cities rose by 0.3 percent from May. Beijing saw a 0.1 percent increase, while Shanghai and Guangzhou each recorded a 0.4 percent rise, and Shenzhen posted a 0.3 percent gain.
The existing home transactions in Beijing reached 16,618 units in June, up about 10 percent from 15,139 units in the same month last year, according to online contract signing data from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.
For the first half of this year as a whole, total transaction for existing homes in the capital hit 93,583 units, a 5.7 percent increase year on year, marking the highest first-half figure in five years.
Similarly, according to data from the Shanghai Real Estate Trading Center, the city's existing home transactions, including commercial properties, totaled 25,158 units in June, marking the fourth consecutive month that volumes have exceeded the 25,000-unit threshold. Over the first six months of the year, cumulative transactions in Shanghai surpassed 147,000 units, also hitting a five-year high for the same period.
In Guangzhou, the market remained active in June after the city issued a package of eight measures, including raising housing provident fund loan limits and launching a temporary subsidy program for home upgrades.
The transaction area of pre-owned residential property in the city reached 918,200 square meters in June, up 3.7 percent year-on-year.
"This year's transaction volume for existing homes has been more active than in the first half of last year, especially from March to May, when it continued to climb higher. The implementation of the eight measures for Guangzhou, along with the increase in the housing provident fund loan limit and the subsidy program for home upgrades, just happened to attract a large number of buyers with rigid housing demand," said Huang Liping, sales manager at a real estate agency in Guangzhou.
"In the first half of the year, there was also a very obvious phenomenon that residents' expectations have become more stable. This is prominently reflected in the fact that the phenomenon of existing home owners lowering prices significantly when listing their properties for sale has improved notably in the first half of this year," said Li Yujia, chief researcher at the Guangdong Provincial Housing Policy Research Center.
Data from the Shenzhen Real Estate Intermediary Association showed that Shenzhen recorded 6,168 resale home transactions in June, up 11.2 percent from a year earlier.
For the first half of 2026, cumulative resale residential transactions in the city reached 33,892 units, a 5 percent increase compared with the same period in 2025.
Existing home prices in first-tier cities up for 4th consecutive month in June
