"I am here to feel the city's development, its accomplishments, as well as the joy and happiness shared by its residents."

Zhang Dejiang, The National People's Congress Standing Committee chairman praised on May 8 the "splendid" achievements Macao has made since its return to China in 1999 and pledged the continuation of "unswerving support" from the central government for the economic and social development of the special administrative region.

"China's long-term growth momentum will continue. ... China has made financial stability a top priority. ..."

Yasuyuki Sawada, Asian Development Bank chief economist, in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the bank's annual meeting on May 7.

"In the near future, we will study ways to send robots or astronauts to mine suitable asteroids and transport the resources back to Earth. In the long term, we will consider using resources from asteroids to build facilities in space or to provide materials to support interstellar travel."

Ye Peijian, a leading specialist in deep-space exploration at the China Academy of Space Technology, told an asteroid exploration forum in Beijing that more than 900 asteroids fly past Earth each year and many of them have rich resources of precious metals such as platinum, rhodium and iridium.

(China Daily European Weekly 05/12/2017 page2)