Progress continues at XM Xiangan International Airport terminal

Xiamen Xiangan airport officials announced last week that the metal roof and glass curtain walls of the terminal building are nearly complete. They added that the facility is on target for completion by the end of 2025. The airport is expected to officially open in 2026. Once completed, it will handle 45 million passengers annually and 750,000 tons of cargo and mail.

Representatives of the Marine Hi-Tech City Construction Company (a part of the Xiamen Torch Group) announced last week the sale of 59,000 square meters of land to a trio of companies. The investors include Hexin Technology, Honghai Equipment and Weizhuo Technology. The 610-million-yuan investment is expected to host facilities that produce an output value topping four billion yuan in five years.

A new platform for economic and trade relations between Xiamen and BRICS countries was launched last week with the opening of the Xiamen Representative Office of the Piaui State Strategic Investment Promotion Agency. Piaui is a state in northern Brazil that is home to three million residents.

This marks the first permanent foreign enterprise representative office established in Xiamen by a local government from a BRICS country since Xiamen opened its BRICS PartNIR Innovation Center.

The office is located in the Maritime Silk Road International Legal and Business Integration Service Base at Xiamen Seaworld. The stated goal of the office is to facilitate friendly exchange and to promote win-win cooperation between Chinese investors and the Piaui government and enterprises in the state.

Piaui governor Rafael Tajra Fonteles participated in the representative office's opening ceremony. He noted that China is Brazil's largest trade partner, adding that the establishment of this office will open new avenues for collaboration between Piaui and Xiamen in trade, culture, technology and education. Mr. Fonteles also expressed his hope that Piaui will become a strategic gateway for Chinese companies entering the Brazilian market.

Customs officials earlier this month unveiled visa-free policies for ordinary passport holders from Cyprus, Greece, Portugal and Slovenia. More than 110,000 foreign nationals have entered Xiamen visa-free since the initial phase of the new policy debuted last year on December 1. Visa-free entries accounted for 35 percent of all international entries to Xiamen, marking a 19-fold increase year-on-year.

City officials last week announced the debut of the Zhiduoqing cleaning vessel, an unmanned ship that can collect various types of surface debris such as leaves, floating silt, duckweed and oil slicks. The ship can operate for up to 10 hours. It can unload and recharge autonomously. Authorities said the vessel can reduce costs compared to manual cleaning by up to 75 percent.

The Cross-Strait Book Fair opened recently in Taiwan. A total of 128 mainland publishing companies and libraries participated at the invitation of the Taiwan Book Publishing Association. Mainland exhibitors brought more than 20,000 book titles to the fair.

Since its 2005 inception in Xiamen in 2005, the Cross-Strait Book Fair has held a total of 19 sessions in Xiamen and Taiwan, facilitating 713 million yuan in book trade. Participants have announced 4,550 copyright trade and cooperation projects over the years. Event officials said that the fair is intended to serve as a vital platform for book exhibition, copyright trade, business exchanges and project cooperation. They added that it helps to foster cultural integration and mutual understanding across the Taiwan Strait.

Passenger flows on the Xiamen-Kinmen route reached post-covid highs on October 12 and 13, with inbound and outbound passengers topping 5,000 per day. The route resumed on January 7, 2023, with monthly inbound and outbound passengers steadily rising from an average of 3,500 to the current average of 100,000, up nearly 30-fold. Xiamen-Kinmen ferry services have also increased from two roundtrips per day to 20 roundtrips per day.

Events that tend to cause a spike in trips include Spring Festival, May Day, Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day as well as the annual Cross-Straits Forum. The Xiamen-Kinmen route has transported cumulatively more than 900,000 inbound and outbound passengers in the year to date.

City officials announced last week that 108 urban villages across Xiamen have participated in local efforts to update the governance system of local villages. They added that the program has provided tangible benefits for participants, citing the example of Huangcuo, one of the first local villages to participate.

Google recently launched its first cross-border e-commerce accelerator center in the Xiamen Sea World area of the Xiamen Free Trade Zone. Officials said that the goal of the center is to leverage Xiamen's industrial strengths, to spur the growth of local cross-border e-commerce sector and to enable businesses in Xiamen and surrounding regions to reach global markets through their own branded platforms.

Xiamen's cross-border e-commerce import and export volume has increased year-on-year by more than 50 percent for three consecutive years, with a 65 percent increase in 2023.

Representatives of the King Long Motor Group announced last week that the company exported more than 5,000 units of each of its Kinglong and Golden Dragon branded buses from January through September. The group's total bus exports topped 14,000 units, maintaining its position as China's top exporter of large and medium-sized buses.  King Long has exported over 300,000 buses to purchasers in more than 160 countries.

Local authorities announced recently that the city is using AI monitoring devices and intelligent recognition systems at various communities and waste disposal points across Xiamen. The system captures images and looks for overflowing waste, fallen debris and piled-up construction materials. It can send screenshots, video clips and real-time alerts to oversight personnel.

Authorities added that the waste sorting management system allows for traceability, remote monitoring and evidence collection. Officials added that the closed-loop system can enhance regulatory efficiency and reduce non-compliant waste sorting behavior.

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来源：CommonTalk Weekly

编辑：严琦 值班首编：张薇薇