XM earns National Advanced City for Blood Donation title

The Silk Road Shipping e-commerce express line is a direct shipping route between Xiamen Port and Manila Port in the Philippines, Local port officials announced last week that the shipping route has handled nearly 30,000 TEU of container cargo with a total value exceeding 10.3 billion yuan since its opening last June. The route facilitates the export of the e-commerce to Manila Port in two days.

This year's China Brand Products (Central and Eastern Europe) Exhibition launched on June 8 in Budapest, Hungary. The Xiamen pavilion helped 26 companies showcase their products in Hungary. With 53 booths displaying a diverse range of Xiamen-produced exports, the three-day exhibition helped to promote the city's branded products and service trade offerings in central and eastern Europe. 

After more than six months of refurbishment, the Xiamen Railway Culture Park fully reopened to visitors last week. The upgrades include new landscaping elements that reference railroad culture as well as a expanded children's recreational area.

Numbers from China's seventh national census indicate that the 10 largest ethnic minorities in Xiamen are local residents from the Tujia, Miao, She, Hui, Yi, Zhuang, Buyi, Dong, Manchu and Mongolian ethnicities.

Tujia are the largest ethnic minority in Xiamen. More than 40,000 Tujia individuals constitute 0.78 percent of the city's population, followed closely by 38,000 local residents with Miao ancestry. Xiamen's total ethnic minority population reaches 200K residents.

Local officials announced last week that Xiamen will open this year a total of 25 public-interest nurseries with the capacity to care for a combined 2,000 infants. Representatives of the local health commission said that Xiamen will continue to develop multiple nursery services, to improve relevant standards and regulations and to support the training and regulation of child care professionals.

Local authority announced recently that local blood donors may be eligible for a range of rewards, including entry into a lottery that offers items such as free public transport access, wider coverage for medical reimbursements and priority access to affordable rental housing.

Xiamen is the first city in Fujian to implement a suite of favorable policies for blood donors. A total of 5,000 local residents are currently eligible for the program. Approximately 3,500 donors have applied for the program. Nine lottery winners to date have received prioritized access to affordable rental housing.

The local Culture and Tourism bureau recently announced that a new cultural tourism promotion program featuring more than 600 cultural tourism products and 200 activities will run through August. The summer campaign launched alongside the inaugural China television series conference.

Local authorities noted a boom in tourism related to places and activities featured in television and movies. Travel agencies such as C&D CITS and XiamenAir are offering a weal of media-related small package tours.

This year's CEC Cup, a four-nation basketball club tournament, opens in Xiamen on June 22 at the Jiageng Gymnasium. The event features a quartet of teams from Argentina, China, Italy and the U.S. The tournament includes a total of six games over the course of three days.

Representatives of the local branch of the Public Security Bureau's Exit-Entry Administration announced recently a near 20-fold surge in locally-issued travel permits in advance of Dragon Boat Festival and summer travel.

Authorities issued more than 235,000 exit and entry permits in the past five months since the National Immigration Administration revised immigration management policies on January 8.

The totals include 69,000 passports (up 26-fold), 149,000 permits for travel Hong Kong and Macao (up 19-fold), and 16,000 permits for Taiwan (up eight-fold). Police official Wang Yu said that authorities anticipate a surge in applications after the conclusion of China's annual college entrance examination period.

The Xiamen branch of the Red Cross Society of China recently donated 86 automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) to the Xiamen Rail Transit Group. The devices will be deployed at 57 subway stations along lines one, two and three, as well as at 29 BRT stations on the Jimei, Qianpu and Tongan lines. The deployment of the 86 AEDs means that all subway and BRT stations in Xiamen will include AED devices.

Xiamen's Art Museum of China Profiles announced recently that it will exhibit a wide selection of engravings by noted artist Huang Yongyu. The exhibition includes roughly 200 engravings created between the 1940s and the 1990s.

The show will feature an exhibition hall covering the artist's decade in Fujian, showcasing a painting entitled Starting from Fujian drawn by Mr. Huang for the exhibition. The exhibit will include writings by the artist about his time in Fujian.