FOOTWEAR FRENZY: Employees at a shoe plant in Jinjiang, southeast China's Fujian Province, waste no time working to fulfill export orders. Shoe exports of Jinjiang in the first half of this year grew 6.8 percent year on year to $1.1 billion (LAI JIANQIANG)

Numbers of the Week

323 million

China's crude steel output in the first half of the year hit 323 million tons, up 21.09 percent year on year, said the National Bureau of Statistics.

$1.07 billion

Trade between the Chinese mainland and Macao in the first half of the year rose 9.3 percent year on year to reach $1.07 billion, said the Ministry of Commerce.