BEIJING - China's growing number of bespectacled youth have caught the attention of national leaders. On Wednesday, the annual National Eye Health Day, Vice Premier Sun Chunlan ordered schools and health departments to do more to prevent shortsightedness among young people. Sun, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said the central authorities have crafted measures to deal with this specific problem and strict enforcement at local levels is now needed. Health experts say more than 450 million Chinese suffer from shortsightedness, which occurs more often among children and junior adults. Bad reading habits and overuse of electronic devices are to blame. In Beijing alone, 58.6 percent of students in primary and middle schools suffer from poor eyesight, according to a government survey conducted two years ago. The students' eyesight deteriorates as they advance in their studies, the survey has found. A whopping 89.4 percent of senior high students were found to have eyesight problems. When visiting a primary school in central Beijing, Sun said schools should improve infrastructure to ensure a good learning environment and step up supervision to correct bad habits that harm students' eyesight. She said schools are regarded as the main battlefield to fight shortsightedness because students spend a lot of time on campus. Schools should strictly enforce the twice-a-day eye exercise routine and set aside at least one hour a day for students to do physical activities, Sun ordered. She suggested education authorities add eyesight protection to schools' performance assessments. During her visit to a community health center, Sun urged health workers to set up dossiers to monitor changes in each student's eyesight and intervene as soon as possible to prevent further deterioration, especially acute shortsightedness. We should create a good environment in which the government takes overall charge, departments cooperate, experts give guidance, schools educate, and families pay attention, Sun said. Let every child have a pair of bright eyes for their bright future. wristbands with tabsmotivational wristbands for athletescool wristbands1 inch wide rubber bandsbatman wristband
The automaking industry is among the potential sectors in which foreign companies can invest in Dalian. [Photo by ZHANG CHUNLEI/CHINA DAILY] Foreign investment continues to flood into Dalian this year, proving the port city in Liaoning province is one of the most attractive investment destinations in Northeast China. According to the Dalian bureau of foreign trade and economic cooperation, more than 70 foreign-funded enterprises had been established in the city this year as of the end of May, with pledged investment amounting to $12.5 billion. The total amount invested in Dalian so far this year totaled $1.58 billion by May, increasing 4.39 percent from the same period of last year. Renowned global information technology giant Intel is one of the biggest sources of investment, with newly added funding of $479 million in place to expand the capacity of its Dalian plant. The newly added fund is part of its committed investment of $5.5 billion, announced in October last year, and will be used to upgrade its nonvolatile memory chip production facilities at its existing Dalian plant. Non-volatile memory, or non-volatile storage, is a type of computer memory that can retrieve stored information even after having been turned off and back on. Dalian is located at the southernmost end of the Liaodong Peninsula, at the conjunction of the Yellow Sea in the east and Bohai Bay in the west. It neighbors such countries as Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and Russia. With a land area of 13,000 square kilometers and a population of 6.9 million, the city is one of the shipping hubs in Northeast Asia and one of the most favored foreign investment destinations in Northeast China. According to Liu Zhiguo, deputy chief of the Dalian bureau of foreign trade and economic cooperation, the city has approved about 18,000 foreign-invested enterprises in the past 30 years, with accumulated investment totaling $105.86 billion. He said more than 4,600 foreign-invested enterprises are currently operational in Dalian, including those funded by renowned multinational companies such as British Telecom, Volkswagen, Total and Canon. By the end of 2016, there were 262 projects funded by 113 companies on the Fortune Global 500 list.
