Italy receives Winter Olympic torch from Beijing: Italian president

China

Italy receives Winter Olympic torch from Beijing: Italian president

2024-12-14 14:06 Last Updated At：16:37

Italian President Sergio Mattarella highlighted the significant ties between the upcoming Winter Olympic Games in Italy and the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, emphasizing the potential for collaboration between the two nations to convey a powerful message of peace and unity through the universal language of sport.

Mattarella noted that the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, the fourth Olympic Games to be held in Italy, present a unique opportunity for Italy and China to collaborate on a joint initiative promoting peace and unity, during an interview with the China Media Group (CMG) in Beijing aired Friday.

"The Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 has close ties with the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Milano-Cortina received the torch from Beijing and is prepared to hold the next Winter Olympics. This action jointly promotes a message of peace through the Olympic Games, which is the real meaning of the Olympics," he said.

The Winter Olympics have served as a catalyst for deepening cultural and practical ties between China and Italy, with the co-hosting of Winter Olympics-themed exhibitions in Beijing and Milan in 2022. This marked a significant milestone in the strengthening of bilateral relations, which has since been accompanied by a surge in people-to-people exchanges between the two nations.

Macao anticipates 33 million tourist arrivals in 2024

2024-12-14 16:22 Last Updated At：16:37

Fueled by a tourism boom, China's Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) is seeing its tourist arrivals trend higher, anticipating over 33 million visitors to enter the city this year.

A total of 32.545 million visitors have arrived in Macao as Dec 7, this year.

Industry insiders attribute the region's growing popularity as an international tourist destination largely to diverse cultural and entertainment activities and improving infrastructure.

In recent years, Macao and its neighboring Chinese mainland province of Guangdong have stepped up efforts to make it more convenient for people to travel to the SAR.

In 2019, China's central authorities issued a general plan for building a Guangdong-Macao in-depth cooperation zone in Hengqin, which is located in the southern part of Zhuhai City in Guangdong, just across the Macao SAR.

The plan calls for efforts to build Hengqin into an international tourism island and Macao into a world center of tourism and leisure.

This year, the annual passenger flow of Hengqin Port exceeded 20 million for the first time. As of late November, the port handled 5.42 million Chinese mainland tourist trips, a year-on-year increase of 31.4 percent.

During major holidays, its daily passenger traffic broke historic record five times, with the highest reaching 103,500.