The Chinese-made C919 passenger jet will make its first scheduled international flights in August, reports the South China Morning Post. The move marks a significant milestone for the country’s ambitions to become self-sufficient in aerospace.

The narrowbody aircraft, operated by national carrier Air China, will start flying between Beijing and the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar on August 12, according to state news agency Xinhua. There will be one round-trip flight every day.

The C919 has already been making regular commercial flights to and from Hong Kong, its first non-mainland destination.

Three Chinese airlines will buy a combined 95 Airbus aircraft for ‌a total list price of about $17.8 billion, reports Reuters. This comes as Chinese carriers push to expand capacity and modernise their fleets with more fuel-efficient jets.

Air China and its unit Shenzhen Airlines will buy 55 Airbus aircraft for a ​total list price of $12.4 billion, while Hainan Airlines separately agreed to purchase 40 A320neo-family jets for a ​list price of up to $5.4 billion, according to filings with the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The new jets are ​expected to boost ⁠the total capacity by about 7.1% for the Air China group and 4.3% for Shenzhen Airlines, based on the group’s combined passenger and cargo capacity as of December 31, 2025, though some of the aircraft will ⁠replace ​ageing jets being retired.

Iran briefly allowed several Chinese-owned cargo ships through the Strait of Hormuz late Saturday, reports Caixin. This came after some South Korean and Saudi-linked tankers defied Tehran’s closure order and pushed through on routes closer to Oman.

The passage offered a fresh sign that the strait, a choke point for global energy shipments, could reopen intermittently even as Iran’s military said earlier Saturday that the waterway remained closed and that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wouldn’t issue passage permits to any vessel until further notice. By Saturday night, Iran had cleared four Chinese-owned cargo ships and two Greek-owned cargo ships to transit the strait.

The four Chinese-owned vessels were the 4,500-ton heavy emergency salvage crane ship Chuangli, operated by the Shanghai Salvage Bureau under China’s Ministry of Transport; the heavy-lift carrier Jin Xuxiang 88; the 30,000-ton general cargo ship Qilinzuo; and the 20,000-ton general cargo ship Zhesan. All identified themselves while transiting as “CHINA OWNER & CREW.”

China’s ports continued to dominate global efficiency rankings in 2025, with seven Chinese trade hubs placing in the top 10, reports the South China Morning Post citing a study by the World Bank and S&P Global.

Launched in 2020, the Container Port Performance Index (CPPI) compares the efficiency of more than 400 ports around the world by measuring how long vessels spend in each trade hub on average, as a longer processing time indicates a higher chance of delays and supply bottlenecks.

China’s ports once again led the way in terms of efficiency last year, with Fuzhou in the southeastern Fujian province claiming top spot, followed by Dalian in northeastern China in second place and Oman’s Salalah port in third. Hong Kong placed ninth.

China has formally begun construction on an ambitious project to enable the passage of larger vessels and streamline logistics along the Yangtze River, reports the South China Morning Post.

The centrepiece of the planned RMB 77.2 billion ($11.4 billion) infrastructure buildout, which looks to span nearly a decade, is a series of mega ship locks–colossal structures also known as “water elevators” or “water staircases” that are built into a dam.

The project is considered the biggest infrastructure undertaking along the Yangtze in decades, eclipsing the scale of previous works since the river was dammed in 1997 for flood control and hydropower. Its urgency stems from surging shipping demand that has overwhelmed existing facilities built in 2003.