China's financial hub, Shanghai, announced 31 policy measures to promote high-quality and innovative development of the service sector.
According to a press conference held on Monday by the Shanghai Municipal Development and Reform Commission, the measures include attracting leading companies and establishing a directory of key enterprises and a list of priority projects.
The municipal government will support companies that achieve a particular scale of operating revenue or sales or maintain growth within the year in accordance with regulations.
Meanwhile, measures will be taken to enhance innovation support, expand the market, and reduce costs for enterprises to foster new growth drivers of the service sector.
"We support the opening of application scenarios, and will release guidelines in areas such as the digital economy and green low-carbon initiatives and provide rewards for benchmark scenario projects in accordance with regulations. In addition, we encourage the expansion of international business and support professional service institutions to accompany local enterprises in their overseas operations," said Qiu Wenjin, deputy director of the commission.
Moreover, Shanghai will launch a new round of pilot programs to expand the opening up of the service sector.
"We aim to create high-quality, diversified, and composite innovative scenarios for service consumption, guiding enterprises to develop integrated service consumption scenarios centered around tourism, sports, health and digital, and everything related to them," said Luo Zhisong, chief economist of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce.
Shanghai rolls out new measures to boost service sector
The United States military hit a civil factory in Yemen's Hodeidah city amid its fresh round of airstrikes on the Houthi-held Red Sea port city on Monday night.
The privately-owned iron and steel plant, located in the Salif district north of Hodeidah city, was targeted by 12 U.S. missiles.
Footage recorded by a China Media Group (CMG) correspondent showed that the roof of the factory completely collapsed after the airstrike, and broken bricks and tiles, as well as shrapnel from artillery shells, could be seen everywhere.
The factory had to stop production due to the damage to the equipment.
"The attack on this plant will leave 250 to 300 workers unemployed, with material losses estimated between 13 million to 14 million U.S. dollars," said Saleh Atifa, Houthi-appointed head of Hodeidah's industrial department.
The U.S. military claimed that they were targeting military facilities, but the steel plant was completely an independent civilian plant, according to the Houthis.
"The brutal hostility of the U.S. military targets civilian facilities and other key facilities. Like the steel plant you see here, it belongs neither to the state nor to the military, nor to the security department or the Houthis. It is an independent civilian factory," said Hodeidah governor Abdullah Atifi.
Over the past two days, dozens of Houthi-controlled military sites, as well as dozens of residential houses, have been targeted and bombed by U.S. fighter jets across the Yemeni capital city of Sanaa, and several other northern and western provinces under Houthi control.
The tensions in the Red Sea are a visible manifestation of the spillover effects of the latest round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict centered on the Gaza Strip.
The renewed conflict in the Red Sea comes after Israel halted the entry of goods and supplies into Gaza Strip on March 2, coinciding with the end of the first phase of the ceasefire agreement.
On Tuesday, the Houthi group announced that it would resume launching attacks against any Israeli ship in the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Bab al-Mandab Strait until the crossings of the Gaza Strip are reopened and aid is allowed in.
US military hits civil steel plant in Hodeidah, Yemen
