XINJIANG

Virus-hit businesses get financial support

Financial institutions in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region have loaned 201 billion yuan ($29.5 billion) to 26,000 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises by August this year to mitigate the impact of COVID-19. Outstanding loans to Xinjiang's micro and small businesses reached 417 billion yuan as of August, up 30.6 percent year-on-year, according to the Urumqi central subbranch of the People's Bank of China. To ease repayment pressure on these enterprises, 100 local financial institutions have postponed principal repayment of about 2.4 billion yuan for more than 1,800 market entities as of Sept 11.

ANHUI

Bridge over Yangtze opens to traffic

A new railroad bridge over the Yangtze River opened to traffic on Tuesday in the city of Wuhu, Anhui province. With a span of 588 meters between the two main towers, the double-deck, cable-stayed bridge has eight lanes for vehicular traffic on the upper deck and four rail tracks on the lower level. Two of the tracks have been designed for the Shangqiu-Hefei-Hangzhou High-speed Railway, which started operations on June 28. The other two tracks are reserved for rail transit lines.

Xinhua