Direct flight to connect Harbin, Vladivostok

China’s Sichuan Airlines will launch a direct air route between Vladivostok, Russia and the northeast Chinese city of Harbin starting on Thursday. An Airbus A321 departs from Harbin, capital of Heilong jiang province, at 7:30 am and arrive in Vladivostok at 11 am local time every Thursday and Sunday. The return flight leaves Vladivostok at 12:10 pm local time and arrives in Harbin at 11:15 am on Thursdays and Sundays, according to Harbin Taiping International Airport. China Southern Airlines and Russia’s Aurora Airline currently operate direct flights between the two cities. nation’s big banks to absorb a new A$6.2 billion ($4.56 billion) levy despite a warning from the banks that the tax hike would be handed down to customers. In one of the more controversial measures announced in the Australian federal budget this week, Australia’s “big five” banks will be required to pay a 0.06 percent levy to the government in an effort to fix the budget deficit, but the industry is fuming and has warned the tax would trickle down to affect everyday Australian families. Speaking to the media on Thursday, Treasurer Scott Morrison said the banks needed to “pony up” and take the “reasonable” hit, explaining that it would only be four years before the budget is back in surplus. experts who are lauding China’s taste for Australian beef. Following news that Australia’s richest woman and mining magnate Gina Rinehart was seeking to ramp up cattle exports to China, industry experts have said that Australia’s beef industry was likely to see a robust growth. Michael Whitehead from the ANZ Bank’s agribusiness sector overnight told News Corp that it is was no wonder Australia’s richest were continuing to pour their money into the beef industry, citing Rinehart and retail giant Gerry Harvey as examples of prime beef investors. “Being in control of the start of the beef supply chain is a great place to be if protein is going to be increasingly in short supply,” Whitehead said of Australia’s beef industry. commodity production and stagnant tourism. According to the latest Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and the Pacific by the IMF, growth in the frontier economies and small states, on average, slowed in 2016, though there have been considerable variations. Among countries where activity moderated, growth in Laos declined to 6.9 percent in 2016 owing to a slowdown in major trading partners, lower metals prices, and poor weather for agriculture.