China's Farmland No Longer Decreasing

The decade-long decrease in China's farmland acreage is expected to end this year.

During the period from November last year and June this year, 98,600 ha of farmland were used for industrial and real estate projects. However, the country developed 166,460 ha of new farmland through the cultivation of wasteland, according to statistics of the Ministry of Land and National Resources, resulting in a net increase of 67,800 ha of farmland.

An official from the ministry said that 19 provinces and autonomous regions have ended the trend toward decreasing farmland, and the remaining eight provinces and municipalities will not find it difficult to find new sources of land to compensate for the amount of farmland used for non-agricultural purposes.

The official attributed this turnaround to the implementation of a land management law which became effective on January 1 this year. (Xinhua)

*Foreign-Funded Ventures Help Shanghai's Foreign Trade Growth

Shanghai October 28 reported a year- on-year growth of nearly 24 percent in its import and export business for the first eight months this year, 16 percentage points higher than the national average.

Customs figures show that during the eight-month period, foreign-funded enterprises in Shanghai exported 6.48 billion US dollars worth of goods and imported 7.15 billion, rising 32.74 percent and 16.78 percent, respectively, from a year earlier, and accounting for 56.44 percent and 61.93 percent of Shanghai's total for the same period.

Shanghai maintained the export growth momentum in some of its key markets in Europe and America, and saw a growth recovery in the financial crisis-hit markets in Southeast Asian nations, Japan and the Republic of Korea. (Xinhua)