BEIJING, Sept. 6 (Xinhua) -- Amid the further containment of COVID-19, China is striving to get back to work and resume business and production. The following are the highlights of the past week:

-- DIRECT INBOUND FLIGHTS

Beijing has gradually resumed direct inbound flights to the city from eight countries, starting from Thursday, according to the municipal government.

The listed countries are Cambodia, Greece, Denmark, Thailand, Pakistan, Austria, Canada and Sweden, all of which pose a low risk of cross-border infection and conduct nucleic acid tests for passengers, said Xu Hejian, spokesperson for the Beijing municipal government.

Negative COVID-19 test results before boarding is a prerequisite for passengers of Beijing-bound flights.

The number of passengers on direct international flights to Beijing is capped at around 500 each day during the trial period, which is expected to double after the trial run ends, Xu said.

-- FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN FTZS

China's pilot free trade zones (FTZs) attracted robust foreign investment and trade in the first seven months of the year despite downcast sentiment in the global market, official data showed Wednesday.

The six pilot FTZs in the regions of Shandong, Jiangsu, Guangxi, Hebei, Yunnan and Heilongjiang, as well as Shanghai's Lingang Area, a newly launched section of the Shanghai FTZ, attracted 13.11 billion yuan (about 1.9 billion U.S. dollars) of foreign investment during the January-July period, Tang Wenhong, an official from the Ministry of Commerce, said at a press conference.

Foreign trade in those FTZs came in at 660.76 billion yuan in the seven-month period, accounting for 10.8 percent of the total foreign trade in the regions.

-- PMI

The purchasing managers' index (PMI) for China's manufacturing sector decreased to 51 in August from 51.1 in July, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Monday.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction. It is the sixth month in a row that the figure remained in the expansion territory.

NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said policies of balancing epidemic control and economic development yield notable fruit, and the economy keeps recovering with good prospects.

The PMI for China's non-manufacturing sector came in at 55.2 in August, up from 54.2 in July, the NBS said. Enditem

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