China's progress on business resumption on May 10

Amid the further containment of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), China is powering ahead in returning to work and resuming business and production. The following are the latest facts and figures:

— A China-Europe freight train carrying anti-epidemic supplies on May 9 left Wuhan, once hit hard by COVID-19, heading for Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.

The train departed Wujiashan railway container center station at 10 am, loaded with 294.42 metric tons of anti-epidemic supplies such as masks, protective suits, goggles and medical devices, according to the China State Railway Group Co Ltd (China Railway).

— International hospitality groups are gradually resuming full operations in China. As of May 8, all of Hilton's 250 hotels in China's mainland have resumed business, while more than 98 percent of over 470 hotels of InterContinental Hotels Group PLC in China had been in operations since May 5.

— China's rail freight volume, an indicator of broad economic activity, rose slightly in the first four months of the year, a sign of recovery from the COVID-19 shock amid continuous efforts to contain the epidemic.

The country's State-operated railways carried a total of 1.09 billion tons of freight during the January-April period, up 2.4 percent year-on-year, according to data from the China Railway.

In April alone, the railways transported 267 million tons of cargo, an increase of 0.2 percent from one year earlier.