May 4, 1983

Beijing bus service sees great changes

Great changes have taken place in Beijing's public transport system over the past 33 years, said Zhao Zhezheng, manager of the Municipal Public Transportation Company.

The company now has 3,459 buses on 135 lines, covering more than 1,600 km. It also runs a metro underground with 120 cars running over 23 km tracks and is preparing to open services on an additional 24-km line that goes around the city.

In the 1950s, the company had imported several hundred buses from East European countries to replace the old buses. Today, more than 93 percent of the buses are domestically manufactured.

May 5, 1983

Sciences academy lays out ambitious projects

A program of scientific and technological joint research is being organized by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences to promote China's economic development.

Scientists in 90 out of the total 119 research institutes of the academy have been involved in the program, which is an important part of the academy's Sixth Five-Year Plan (1981-85).

The program includes 10 major projects such as a study of comprehensive development of the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain and a research on new energy resources for China's rural areas.

Farmers rushing to bookstores

Sixty percent of the books sold in China are being bought by farmers, according to a spokesman for the head office of Xinhua Bookstore.

Nationwide, Xinhua Bookstore reported a 61 percent rise in sales last year over 1978 with the figure for the rural areas doubling in the five-year period.

Participants at a conference on rural book distribution in Hunan province earlier this year said that the increased interest of farmers in books was generated by the agricultural responsibility system.

(China Daily 05/07/2008 page9)