IN BRIEF (Page 5)

Hunan tourism

The Hunan province tourism showered local residents with 1 million yuan's worth of vouchers, offering discount hotel rooms and free admission to many of the province's most popular attractions.

The move comes as part of the province's bid to stimulate local tourism and persuade residents to explore their backyard.

"The purpose of distributing the tourism vouchers was to attract potential tourists and spur the local Hunan tourism market. The move was simple yet effective," said Yang Guangrong, head of the provincial tourist administration office.

New coalfield found

China has discovered a new coalfield containing more than 13 billion tones of proven coal reserves in the northwestern region of Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, China News Service reported.

The 1,400 square-kilometer Sha'erhu coalfield, located in the Shanshan county in eastern Xinjiang, contains coal suitable for power generation and gas conversion. Total estimated reserves in Shanshan County are around 240 billion tons. Shanshan aims to raise its total coal production capacity to 400 million tons by 2020.

Guangxi buys metals

Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region has completed a draft for a plan to buy metals as reserves to support local smelters that face weak demand, Reuters reported.

An official at the industry bureau of Baise city, the top aluminum producing area in Guangxi in southwestern China, was quoted as saying he expected the provincial government to finalize the volumes and prices for the buying plan in about two weeks' time.

The plan was disclosed by regional party secretary Guo Shengkun in December last year.

Landmark spud deal set

Four thousand five hundred kilograms of potatoes will be exported from Ningxia to Germany at the price of $1.5 per kilogram, the first ever potato exports from China to Europe.

The total value of the potatoes heading for Germany is about $6,600, more than 20 times their domestic value. Ma Shengke, an official of the Xingxia Guyuan Potato Shipping Association, said relevant European businesses and experts asked to evaluate the potatoes found them equal in quality to those grown in Europe.

Rock-climbing field

The construction of the rock-climbing field has got under way in the preparation for the 2009 climbing world championship in Northwest China's Qinghai province.

One of the contractors for the Bird's Nest, Chongqing Zhongti Company, is in charge of the designing and construction for the rock-climbing field. The construction is expected to finish in early June, according to the organizing committee of the 2009 climbing world championship, kicking off on June 30th.

Wedding for 40

The Chinese government will pay for a group wedding of 40 survivors who lost spouses in last year's Sichuan earthquake to help them make new families and officials will be given priority, a newspaper said on Wednesday.

"Twenty families will finally be chosen, 10 of which must have one official at least, and the other 10 couples will be ordinary people," the Sichuan-based Tianfu Morning Post said, citing a government announcement. The group wedding will be held next Month and each couple can invite eight friends to the ceremony, the newspaper said.

(China Daily 03/23/2009 page5)