Here are six stories you may have missed from China over the past week. For more details, click the headlines.

China celebrates the Mid-Autumn festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival, celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, is usually marked by family reunions, enjoying the sights of the full moon and eating mooncakes.

A slew of cultural activities to celebrate the occasion took place around China. As a legal holiday in China, the three-day Mid-Autumn Festival provides an opportunity for many people to travel short distances with their families.

Despite the anti-epidemic travel requirements in Chinese cities, following recent COVID-19 outbreaks, people still found many ways to relax and enjoy the holiday. 

People stay close to home for Mid-Autumn festival

Due to pandemic control measures, China saw its number of traveler trips and revenues drop during the festival, as many cities encouraged citizens to "celebrate the holiday near home."

A total of 73.41 million domestic tourist trips were made during the three-day holiday, down 16.7 percent from last year, according to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Monday.

Tourism revenues reached 28.68 billion yuan ($4.14 billion),  a decrease of 22.8 percent year on year.

However, short-distance trips and local tourism, such as visiting relatives and friends, outdoor leisure and camping, city-night tours, and rural tourism, became more mainstream during the holiday.

Calls to 'speed up' implementation of economic policy

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has stressed the need for efforts to ensure the implementation of policy measures to stabilize economic growth, employment and prices.

Li, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks at a special meeting after hearing reports from two working groups on work for stabilizing the economy.

"Efforts should be made to speed up the construction of key projects, and increase the quota of the policy-backed and development-oriented financial instruments based on the local needs," Li said.

Fujian sea bridge connected

The main part of the Xiang'an Bridge, the second fully prefabricated cross-sea bridge in east China's Fujian Province after the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, was successfully joined on Monday.

The steel box girder at the connecting section is 72 meters long, 53 meters wide and 3.5 meters high and weighs 2197.2 tonnes. It is the widest steel box girder of the whole bridge and the widest steel box girder hoisted in China. 

Reusable liquid rocket engine test successful

A reusable rocket engine developed by Xi'an Aerospace Propulsion Institute completed its first test flight.

The first aircraft solely developed by China and powered by reusable liquid oxygen and kerosene engine represents a major breakthrough in China's engine reusability development.

Construction begins on nation's largest solar park 

Work has begun on the largest solar park in China. Each year, the site in the Teng-ger desert will provide as much power as millions tonnes of coal.

The photovoltaic power base, with a total installed capacity of about three gigawatts will generate about 5.78 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, saving 1.92 million tonnes of standard coal and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by about 4.66 million tonnes annually.