Upon passing muster after an inspection on June 1, 2021, the newly constructed Yanchang-Huanglong Expressway was ready to open to traffic. Lu Baoping, project manager of this engineering project, felt a sense of personal achievement.

Offering fast, low-cost delivery, foreign-based warehouses have become an important platform for the development of cross-border e-commerce. These warehouses are now improving and expanding their global network.

The Jinsha River looks even clearer and more turquoise glittering under the summer sun. Xu Guocong, a 38-year-old woman living by the river, goes to work every morning after sending her son to school. She works as a public area attendant for an electromechanical project in Baihetan Hydropower Station that was funded by China Energy Group.

Exporting to 37 countries and regions with an annual export value of RMB 50 million — few would expect that this performance was made by New Newton International Trade (Tianjin) Co., Ltd., a small company with just 21 employees.

“The newly-opened plant in Yangzhou, east China’s Jiangsu Province, is the 54th production base of Saint-Gobain in China. We are optimistic about the Chinese market and our future here,” Javier Gimino, senior vice president and Asia Pacific CEO of Saint-Gobain Group, expressed his full confidence in China’s economic development.

In 2018 the State Council of China approved the establishment of the China (Hainan) Pilot Free Trade Port and released the China (Hainan) Pilot Free Trade Zone General Plan. In the following years, the levels of economic development continued to rise in Hainan, positioning the province as a shining example of China’s opening-up and reform drive, creating new opportunities for people of the region and beyond.

On March 11, the Fourth Session of the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC) approved the Outline of the 14th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035. The adoption of this master plan for China to embark on a new journey of building a modern country in all respects is a landmark and has attracted extensive attention both at home and abroad.

When Li Bingjian went to work in Fujian, he was struck by the prosperity of the coastal province. He was from Sichuan, a mountainous province where the rural areas were still underdeveloped, and for years he had worked in different industries as an unskilled laborer without much success. So after stints in the construction industry and at a salt factory, he went to Fujian to work on a chicken farm.

In April, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Administration released 10 typical cases of intellectual property protection in the municipality in 2020, covering patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret and Olympic logo. One of the cases was the crackdown on counterfeit Lego toy. In December 2020, the Shanghai Higher People's Court upheld the first-instance verdict on the case involving nine people forging 330 million yuan ($51 million) worth of Lego toys.

Recovering from the lows caused by COVID-19 last year, China's economy grew 18.3 percent year on year to 24.93 trillion yuan ($3.82 trillion) in the first quarter (Q1) of 2021. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on April 16, the average yearly growth during Q1 of 2020 and 2021 was 5 percent, when measured against 2019 levels.

Faced with the increasing threat from global warming, the importance of limiting the rise of the global temperatures within 1.5 degrees Celsius has become self-evident. To meet the Paris Agreement objective, by the end of this century, global carbon dioxide emissions are expected to fall to zero.

The COVID-19 epidemic has led to the emerging of many new forms of employment that are based on the digital economy. According to data from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security and other central agencies, the scale of flexible employment has reached about 200 million people. This means the country has entered the gig economy era.

The other shoe has dropped for e-commerce giant Alibaba Group. The State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) imposed an administrative penalty on April 10 for its monopolistic conduct of implementing an "exclusive dealing agreement."

From a quiet fishing village to a modern hi-tech metropolis − the Cinderella fairy tale in Shenzhen never ceases to amaze everyone who has been there. Where once 30,000 rural people went about their basic daily lives in the small county seat of Bao’an, today shiny glass office towers kiss the clouds and innovative people chase the Chinese dream.