Nighttime consumption jumps 27.06%

NIGHTTIME consumption during the week-long Spring Festival holiday in China surged 27.06 percent year on year, the Economic Information Daily reported Wednesday.

The total nighttime consumption topped 379 billion yuan (US$59.5 billion) in the period that ended Feb. 6, accounting for almost 34 percent of the country’s overall consumption during the holiday, the report said. China’s night economy, which refers to business activities between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. in the service sector, has registered stable recovery as the COVID-19 epidemic wanes.

More ecological farms planned

CHINA plans to build more ecological farms in the coming years to advance modernization and green development in the agricultural sector, said a guideline published Wednesday by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.

China aims to build 1,000 national ecological farms and 10,000 local ones nationwide by 2025. They will be agriculture production and operation entities, targeting maximum sustainable output while seeking to match the resources, be environmentally friendly, and ensure food safety, it said.

US FDA panel to discuss lung cancer drug

A PANEL of expert advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will meet Friday to discuss whether a lung cancer therapy that has been studied only in China should be approved in the United States, and whether trial results are applicable to the U.S. population.

The drug, sintilimab, from Chinese cancer drug developer Innovent Biologics Inc. and U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co., has been developed and commercialized under a global agreement. Lilly and Innovent currently sell the drug, marketed as Tyvyt in China, where it was approved for relapsed or resistant to treatment classic Hodgkin’s lymphoma after at least two lines of chemotherapy.

Zhejiang approves new US$1.10b power plant

THE eastern Chinese coastal province of Zhejiang has approved the construction of a new 7 billion yuan (US$1.10 billion) coal-fired power plant with 2 gigawatts (GW) of generating capacity, the firm in charge of the project said Wednesday.

Zhejiang Energy Group said the Phase 2 Project of the Liuheng Power Plant would consist of two highly efficient “ultra-supercritical” units and would help balance energy supply and demand in the province.