China Daily:

Chinese athletes excelled at the recently concluded 2024 Paris Olympics. Similarly, many ordinary Chinese fitness enthusiasts also look forward to having platforms to showcase their abilities. What plans does the GASC have for launching and promoting more local sporting competitions that are accessible to the public? What progress has been made so far? Thank you.

Zhou Jinqiang:

Thank you. Mr. Ding will answer your questions.

Ding Dong:

Thank you for your questions. Competitions and sporting events serve as catalysts to promote public fitness. In recent years, the GASC has implemented comprehensive policies and taken multiple measures. The main efforts are as follows:

First, mass sports events at the National Games, the National Fitness Competition, and community-based athletic contests are spearheading efforts to provide public fitness programs. In accordance with the goal of promoting widespread participation in the National Games and ensuring their benefits reach all, the 15th National Games in 2025 will feature 23 categories and 166 events in mass sports. Currently, qualifying events are being held nationwide, allowing fitness enthusiasts to showcase their progress. This year, embracing the concept of providing a national competitive platform for the public and making competitions accessible to all, the GASC took an innovative approach by launching the inaugural National Fitness Competition. The event comprises seven competition zones and aims to create a nationwide public fitness contest that people can choose, join, organize and benefit from. Our goal is to promote a growing sense of fulfillment and well-being among participants.

Second, the GASC is launching themed public fitness programs throughout the year in chronological order while enhancing brand building. These programs have included New Year's Day mountain climbing activities, a Spring Festival-themed public fitness initiative, and a Grand Canal-themed brisk walking program in May. In June, public fitness initiatives commemorated Chairman Mao Zedong's slogan, "Promoting physical culture and sports; strengthening the people's physique," followed by National Fitness Day in August and the Chinese Farmers' Harvest Festival in September. The year will conclude with a Chongyang Festival-themed fitness program for aged people in October and the National Public Ice and Snow Season in December. Notably, during this year's inaugural nationwide Spring Festival-themed public fitness initiative, cities across the country incorporated public fitness activities into their overall festive celebrations. Incomplete statistics show that more than 7,200 public competitions were held during the Spring Festival holiday this year, with more than 10 million people participating directly.

Third, the GASC is intensifying efforts to promote and popularize football, basketball, volleyball and ice and snow sports activities nationwide. The GASC has enhanced its support, promotion and development of popular mass sports programs, such as the Village Super League, the Village Basketball League, and the Village Volleyball League. It has further consolidated and expanded the achievement of engaging 300 million people in winter sports, leveraged the leading and demonstrative role of themed events such as the National Public Ice and Snow Season, and helped the public to learn and master winter sports. Additionally, the GASC has enhanced collaboration between online and in-person initiatives. The online public fitness games, already successfully held twice, launched its third edition this year. In 2023, 22.6 million people participated directly in this online event, with over 17 million participation certificates issued.

Moving forward, the GASC will continue to motivate and mobilize the support of Party committees and governments at all levels. It aims to further diversify mass sports offerings, improve related systemic arrangements, enhance event safety and regulation, and continuously boost public enthusiasm for participation.

This concludes my response. Thank you.

Cover News:

In recent years, an increasing number of people are engaging in fitness and workout activities. What measures has the GASC taken to meet the growing demand for fitness? Thank you.

Zhou Jinqiang:

Mr. Ding will also address this question.

Ding Dong:

Thank you for your question. As you mentioned, there has been a growing awareness of physical fitness in recent years. Simultaneously, people are increasingly concerned about the quality of fitness activities, focusing on factors such as convenient venues, friendly environment, the scientific basis of training methods and progress tracking. We believe that people's primary concerns in this field revolve around whether they can exercise, whether they understand how to exercise and how they can exercise properly. The GASC has proactively collaborated with governments at all levels and relevant departments to implement various measures to address people's concerns.

First, fitness-for-all venues and facilities have been built to ensure people have somewhere they can exercise. We introduced a series of policies and standards to accelerate the construction of sports parks, public fitness centers, fitness walking paths, public football pitches, public skating rinks, and other public fitness facilities. During the 14th Five-Year-Plan period, the GASC worked with relevant departments, and supported local governments to carry out 17,000 fitness facility projects with a total of 2.3 billion yuan. Sports venues are encouraged to open to the public for free or at a low fee. By the end of 2023, the area of sports fields per capita reached 2.89 square meters, and the total length of fitness walking paths nationwide exceeded 371,000 kilometers, which has effectively facilitated the public to participate in physical exercise.

Second, fitness-for-all information has been offered to guide people in how to exercise correctly. In recent years, a range of fitness guidance campaigns have been initiated across the country, such as grassroots fitness instructions, fitness lectures and national physical fitness tests. Fitness knowledge and directions have been brought into schools, rural areas, communities and enterprises. We actively researched popular fitness methods, produced simple and easy fitness short videos and programs, and released science popularization works on sports safety to the public. We have also carried out fitness-for-all volunteer service activities for three years, and selected 313 excellent cases throughout the country. As more volunteers and organizations have taken part in the fitness-for-all services, the overall capability of fitness-for-all volunteer services have been improved significantly.

Third, fitness-for-all competitions and activities have been organized to ensure people can exercise well. At present, mass events of the National Games, the national fitness-for-all competition, and community games have become very popular, and eight nationwide fitness-for-all activities have been held annually, including New Year's climbing events and Fitness-for-All Day. In addition, a number of mass sports events sponsored by various social sports organizations on football, basketball, volleyball and winter sports have been widely promoted to provide more platforms for the public to showcase their fitness achievements. Thank you.

Science and Technology Daily:

A large amount of advanced sports equipment created in China shone at the recently concluded Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Could you briefly introduce this topic? Thank you.

Zhou Jinqiang:

Thank you. I would like to invite Ms. Yang to answer your question.

Yang Xuedong:

Thank you for your question. As an important part of the sports industry, the sporting goods and equipment sector accounts for half of the entire industry. In recent years, we have vigorously boosted the transformation and upgrading of the sporting goods and equipment sector, and advanced the innovation capabilities of sporting goods manufacturing enterprises. Two batches of specialized and sophisticated enterprises that produce new and unique products as well as single-product specialists in the manufacturing industry have been released for the sports industry. So far, the number of these two kinds of enterprises has reached 80 and 15, respectively. The quality and influence of Chinese sports products has constantly been advanced.

At the just concluded Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Chinese athletes achieved successes in both sports competition and sportsmanship, realizing the goal of achieving the best possible athletic results at the event. Innovative products made by Chinese enterprises also stood out at the Games. For example, the colored table tennis tables and the Chinese-made barbells impressed the global audiences. In terms of new technology applications, the "bullet time" multi-camera replay system, deployed at the beach volleyball, tennis, judo and other venues, provided viewers with cinematic effects like freeze-frame views for the first time in a summer Olympics. In terms of new material utilization, the Chinese team's bicycles used in the track cycling events were made from T1100 carbon fiber. The weight of each bicycle frame was only 1,150 grams, which is among the lightest for similar products anywhere in the world. In terms of new concept implementation, the floors in the 3x3 basketball and table tennis venues were made from recyclable rubber, demonstrating an environmentally friendly approach featuring green and low-carbon development. The appearance of these products in the international arena has further enhanced the image of Chinese sports enterprises, showcasing the country's sci-tech innovation and manufacturing capabilities, and reflecting China's determination to drive the industrial chain development toward medium and high-end.

Our next steps will be to focus on both the government and the market. On the government side, we will continue to improve policies. We will work with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) to formulate and issue policy documents to promote the high-quality development of the sporting goods manufacturing sector and optimize the business environment. On the market side, we will continue building brands, creating a number of high-end "intelligent manufacturing in China" brands in the sports sector, cultivating more world-class sports companies, accelerating the transformation and upgrading of sporting goods manufacturing, and further increasing international competitiveness.

This is all that I have to share with you. Thank you.