Emergency relief crews are working around the clock to restore power and water supplies, maritime transporation and telecommunication services to areas in southern China affected by Super Typhoon Yagi.
More than 18,000 communication base stations that were out of service after Super Typhoon Yagi rampaged across Hainan, Guangdong, and Guangxi have been restored, according to Chinese authorities, as emergency repairs to more power and telecom facilities are underway.
China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has deployed the communication sector to make all-out efforts to repair and restore damaged facilities in the two typhoon-hit provinces and Guangxi region.
As of 08:00 Beijing Time on Sunday, 26,628 support personnel, 9,690 emergency vehicles, 10,850 power generators and 127 satellite phones had been dispatched to the affected areas, helping successfully recover service of a total of 18,424 base stations in Hainan, Guangdong, and Guangxi.
Hainan Power Grid has organized an emergence team of more than 7,000 people to carry out repair to damaged electric equipment throughout the province. China Southern Power Grid also sent teams from outside Hainan Island to provide support. At 20:00 Beijing Time on Saturday, the second group of rescue teams of about 2,000 people and more than 500 vehicles arrived in Hainan, following the arrival of the first batch on Wednesday.
The rescue forces will move to different disaster-stricken areas, with priority given to ensuring communication, water, gas supplies and electricity demand of key places such as hospitals and schools.
The maritime authorities in Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province, have taken various measures to ensure the gradual recovery of roll-on-roll-off passenger transport.
Currently, the three ports on the north shore of the Qiongzhou Strait are open to vehicles for emergency repair and daily necessities transport.
Up to now, the operation of 23 roll-on-roll-off passenger ships have been resumed, carrying 1,493 vehicles and 5,251 personnel to across the sea to support the disaster rescue and relief work in Hainan.
In Xuwen County, where the powerful typhoon made its second landfall on Friday evening, the length of damaged cable exceeded 3,000 kilometers as of the early morning of Sunday. More than 430 base stations in urban areas and towns have been restored, while 730 others still need repairs.
At present, the post-disaster repair work is continuing across Xuwen. Communication services in the main areas of the county is expected to be recovered on Sunday and Monday.
Efforts ongoing to restore public services in south China after Typhoon Yagi
Efforts ongoing to restore public services in south China after Typhoon Yagi
Australia will take a full year to deepen bilateral trade in services with China after being named the guest country of honor for the 2025 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS), according to Dominic Trindade, commercial minister of the Australian Embassy in Beijing.
Speaking to China Global Television Network (CGTN) during the fair, Trindade said China and Australia have always been natural trade partners in goods and services.
"China and Australia are natural trading partners. We have been so for many years. Australia's two-way trade with China in goods and services is about a third of our overall trade, global trade. And services have always been a key element that perhaps goes under the radar a little bit. It's not as tangible, it's not as obvious as a great big Anholt carrier or a bottle of Australian wine on the supermarket shelves. But in fact, there is evidence of services trade engagements all around us, particularly here, we have been very active in the China market for many years and bringing with them Australian capability, including around sustainability, better ways of building and planning, and taking into account innovative measures, innovative ways of doing things," said Trindade.
Trindade stressed that the two countries will strengthen cooperation in education in the future, as this will shape the future workforce.
"You often hear people talking about children being the future, students being the future, and young people being the future. And as I said, our tertiary sector, our universities, some of whom are here at CIFTIS this year and they will continue to be involved for the year coming, and we see more of them at the 2025 exhibition. Whether it's the tertiary institutions or the business associations or it's the professional bodies, they're all working to do that. To give the workforce, whether it's the workforce here or the workforce in Australia, the skills and the mindset that are going to enable businesses to make those transitions for a net-zero future," he explained.
As Australia gears up to host the 2025 CIFTIS, Trindade outlined the country's focus on sustainability initiatives for the upcoming year.
"We are going to be the Country of Honor in 2025. In fact, that was something that Chinese Premier Li Qiang announced when he was in Australia in May, visiting our country and meeting with our prime minister and other businesses in Australia. And our strategy for that is to engage substantially this year in CIFTIS 2024, but as part of a kind of multi-year program. We'll be organizing activities and programs focusing on some of the key themes that our participation revolves around. And those themes are really about sustainability, the path to net zero, how to look at Australian services trade in a new light and recognizing some of the capabilities and strengths that we have in our services sector. They've always been there, but we maybe haven't focused on them with that sustainability and net-zero," he said.
Australia to deepen service trade with China as 2025 CIFTIS country of honor: Australian diplomat
