Day: November 6, 2023

Three people died and one was injured in the collapse of a gym in China’s northeastern province of Heilongjiang on Monday and the club’s boss has been detained, according to a local government report on Tuesday morning. The cause of the accident, which occurred at 7.20pm on Monday, was still under investigation, the Huanan county government stated on its WeChat account. A local official was quoted in mainland media reports as saying the collapse was linked to heavy snowfall. A gym collapsed and killed three people in Heilongjiang province, according…

China’s exports continued to decline in October, underlining persistent weak external demand and increased uncertainty over the precarious overall economic recovery, while imports surprised the market by bouncing back to growth. Exports fell for a sixth consecutive month in October, dropping by 6.4 per cent from a year earlier to US$274.8 billion, the General Administration of Customs said on Tuesday. The decline widened from a contraction of 6.2 per cent in September, missing surveyed expectations of a 3.8 per cent drop, according to Chinese financial data provider Wind. Imports, meanwhile,…

The city’s median home price has almost tripled since 1994, firmly establishing Hong Kong as the world’s least affordable urban centre several years running. Mainland Chinese buyers became ever more visible in the top end of Hong Kong’s office and residential markets. More firms were driven out of Central by sky-high rents, decamping to Quarry Bay, Kowloon or other areas, in a process dubbed de-Centralisation. Causeway Bay’s Russell Street went from obscurity to become the world’s priciest retail high street for several years until the Covid-pandemic. Even the process of…

Two US lawmakers are demanding answers from President Joe Biden’s administration about the Hong Kong government’s claim that its Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu was invited to this month’s Apec summit in San Francisco. Republicans Mike Gallagher, who represents Wisconsin and chairs the US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Florida Senator Marco Rubio, asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken whether he will publicly deny that Lee received such an invitation. In a joint letter to Blinken, they noted that “despite the State Department’s assurance” that Lee…