Four people were killed while nine others were injured in a string of hit-and-runs by a car in eastern China’s Jiangsu Province, local police said Saturday.

A car ploughed into several pedestrians in a neighborhood in Jingjiang city at 8:27 p.m. Friday, a police officer said. After the incident, the car did not stop but continued the rampage.

The victims were rushed to hospital where four died despite medical treatment, while the nine injured are believed to be in stable condition.

The driver was caught in nearby Taixing city. Police found that he had taken poison in an attempt to commit suicide. He is receiving emergency treatment.

The incident is under investigation.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has said that the government should attach more importance to encouraging innovation, optimizing the business environment and raising growth quality and efficiency.

Li made the remarks Thursday in a meeting with experts and entrepreneurs on current economic performance and suggestions about future economic work, according to a press release issued Friday.

After the economy stabilized in the first half, “we should not only have firm confidence, but also be well prepared for dealing with all kinds of difficulties,” Li said.

China should reduce transaction costs and streamline administration, delegate power to lower levels and improve regulation and services, Li said.

The government should also strive to create an internationally competitive business environment in which domestic and foreign companies are treated on an equal basis, the premier added.

China should continue to implement the strategy of innovation-driven development, improve the environment for entrepreneurship and innovation and upgrade the manufacturing and service sectors, Li said.

He also called for more progresses in technology, product upgrading and raising the quality and efficiency of growth.

China’s economy grew 6.9 percent year on year in the first quarter, the fastest pace in six quarters and higher than the government’s annual target of around 6.5 percent.

Q2 economic growth rate will be released on July 17.

“China should consolidate the foundation for the stable economic performance with sound growth momentum,” Li said.

The country will continue to stabilize macroeconomic policies, market expectations and the financial market, by sticking to its proactive fiscal policy and prudent monetary policy, taking forward-looking and effective macroeconomic regulation measures, and properly defusing risks, he added.

Efforts will also be made to ensure stable employment, reduce corporate burden, expand effective investment and make consumption play a larger role in economic growth.

The government should make sure that people get the benefits from development by fulfilling the promises of poverty relief, rundown area renovation and pollution control, among others, Li said.

“We should reduce the pains and difficulties in people’s lives, while increase their senses of gain and happiness,” the premier added.

Mrs Merkel wants compromises to make the G20 “a success”. Compromises are not always a good idea. The world can accept different countries having different views and running different systems, as long as they are not threatening to another. The pictures from the summit are certainly not the ones she had in mind when she approved the substantial spending to act as host. The decision to have this meeting of the powerful in a normal city environment has placed huge strain on the German police, and has provided a worrying set of images for the easily distracted media who turn their attention to the violence on the streets rather than to the tired cliches of the communique.

There is of course an important role for personal diplomacy between national leaders. They can sometimes cut through or change the decisions and moods between countries. This is more likely to be achieved through bilateral state visits, bilateral government meetings or even by personal phone call. There are fewer cases when summits achieve this, though in the margins of the official agenda national leaders can have bilaterals to fix pressing problems. Global summits work best when there is a major issue which needs a co-ordinated or collective response. During the period of madness by the Central Banks in the western crash of 2008-9 the meeting that agreed concerted interest rate cuts despite the resistance of the so called independent central banks was an important example of political leaders using an opportunity to shift a policy for the better when their institutions were doing damage.

This summit has an agenda much like past summits. The US is unwilling to sign up to the Paris climate change targets, taking the view that if they did they would be legally bound. In contrast the EU has a history of agreeing to targets it does not enforce, and China sets targets that allow it to go on growing its CO2 output. The countries will agree to further action to tackle tax abuses, but then Mr Trump will fly home to seek to press major tax reductions through the Congress with a view to repatriating more business and profits to the USA.

The world economy on which our prosperity depends is not going to be much affected by this meeting. Crucial to its future is continuing success in China in avoiding banking problems and the hard landing China’s critics have been forecasting for several years. The extent of Mr Trump’s reflationary package and how much he can get through Congress matters a lot. The main thing to hope for is this summit does no harm to growth, sensible credit expansion, and the adoption of the new technologies that are revolutionising our work, play and social fabric.

A ceremony was held on July 7 for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge undersea tunnel to mark the completion of the main structure of the world’s longest cross-sea bridge. The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge is a super large sea-crossing passage, 55 km in length. The most difficult technique is the bridge-island-tunnel main project, which is about 29.6 kilometers long. [Photo/Xinhua]

The main structure of world’s longest sea bridge linking Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macao was completed Friday, the builders said.

It took seven years to build the bridge, which will be open at the end of the year, said Zhu Yongling, director of the management bureau of the bridge.

The main structure measures 29.6 kilometers, consisting of a 22.9-km bridge section and 6.7-km underground tunnel. The bridge’s total length is 55 kilometers.

“The bridge passed all engineering risks, and we will prepare it for public use in a few months,” Zhu said.

Lin Ming, chief engineer of China Communications Construction Company, said they tackled great engineering challenges in building the bridge.

It used 420,000 tonnes of steel, enough to build 60 Eiffel Towers, and consumed 1.08 million cubic meters of cement.

Dubbed “the most technologically complicated bridge,” it crosses shipping lanes in the Lingding Ocean.

“We had to use immersed tubes. Due to lack of experience, it took us 96 hours to lay the first tube in the ocean, and many of the engineers and workers hardly slept for four consecutive days,” said Yin Haiqing, a leading engineer.

The bridge management bureau also issued a standard for the quality of cement.

“We needed several sections to go to work simultaneously, so we had 16 cement mixing stations in operation at the same time, and we ensured the cement they produced were of the same standard,” said another engineer Lu Huaying.

Designers also minimized the impact to the environment when building the bridge, which runs water that is home to Chinese white dolphins.

During construction, the number of the dolphins rose from 1,400 in 2009 to 2,100 in 2016, according to the management bureau.

The Y-shaped bridge will cut travel time between Hong Kong and Zhuhai from three hours to just 30 minutes, further integrating cities in the Pearl River Delta, said Wei Dongqing, deputy secretary of the management bureau’s Communist Party Committee.