1, Closure of the sluice gate at the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is started at zero hour as scheduled, formally beginning water storage of the country's largest reservoir.

8, Construction on China's first trans-oceanic bridge starts at the Hangzhou Bay in east China. With an estimated investment of 11.8 billion yuan, the 36-km-long bridge will be the longest of its kind in the world. It also marks the first involvement of private capital in the country's key capital construction project, as 50.25 percent of its financing is from non-public money.

13, The World Health Organization removes Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Hebei and Shanxi provinces and Tianjin Municipality from its travel advisory list. Tianjin was put on the list on April 23, Inner Mongolia and Shanxi on May 8 and Hebei on May 17.

22-27, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visits China. Premier Wen Jiabao held talks with Vajpayee during his visit. The prime minister also met with President Hu Jintao, Central Military Commission Chairman Jiang Zemin, National People's Congress Standing Committee Chairman Wu Bangguo and Vice President Zeng Qinghong, respectively.

23, Hong Kong is officially removed from the World Health Organization list of SARS-infected areas. The organization's travel advisory against the region is lifted the same day.

24, The World Health Organization decides to lift its travel advisory against Beijing and remove the city from its list of areas with recent local transmission of SARS. By then, travel advisories against all the Chinese mainland provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities were repealed, and they were all removed from the list of SARS-infected areas. This marked a significant victory in China's anti-SARS battle.

27, Anhui Province in east China announces to rescind all agricultural specialty taxes, ushering in a province-wide replacement of the taxes, beginning in 1983, with agricultural taxes. This action was expected to reduce the tax burden on farmers involved by 65 percent.

29-July 1, Premier Wen Jiabao visits Hong Kong, where he attended the signing ceremony of the Closer Economic Partnership Arrangement between the mainland and Hong Kong and celebration activities marking the sixth anniversary of Hong Kong's return to the motherland. During his stay, Wen met with representatives of Hong Kong citizens and local medical workers, expressing congratulations to the region's victory in the fight against SARS. He also made extensive exchanges of views on Hong Kong's future development with people from all walks of life.