The CAAC website said that the measure came in response to a shortage of technicians and other professionals and limited capacity of domestic airports. It will lower the number of peak hour flights from more than 60 to 58 per hour.

Most of the flights being canceled are operated by the nation's three leading carriers: Air China, China Southern and China Eastern.

The CAAC saw the flight cuts as a concrete step to cool the overheating development of air transport, something that has aggravated flight delays.

Meanwhile, the measures are also meant to prevent long delays next August when Beijing hosts the 2008 Olympic Games. Complaints over delayed flights are among the biggest headaches for air travelers, and the CAAC is determined to curb flight delays.

China's air transport is growing at an average annual rate of more than 16 percent. The BCIA handled 26 million passengers in the first half of 2007, and the number for the whole year will far exceed its designed annual capacity of 35 million passengers.

Trade Surplus Slips

China's trade surplus totaled $24.4 billion in July, $2.5 billion less than the monthly record high in June. It was, however, the second highest month in history with a 34.2 percent rise in exports and 26.9 percent rise in imports.

Beijing has reiterated that it is not actively pursuing a trade surplus and has tried to cool the boom by repealing tax rebates on hundreds of products and by imposing additional taxes on exports of some goods such as steel.

But despite such efforts, foreign demand for Chinese goods has surged while import growth has slowed due to government efforts to contain a boom in construction and investment that it worries could cause a financial crisis. Those moves have cut into Chinese purchases of factory equipment and other foreign goods.

Rising Investment and Consumption

- Foreign direct investment

Foreign direct investment (FDI) in China increased 12.9 percent in the first seven months of this year to $36.9 billion, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

In July alone, paid-in FDI stood at $5.04 billion, up 17.84 percent year on year. The ministry said that there were 21,676 new foreign-funded enterprises in the first seven months, down 4.81 percent from a year earlier.

New U.S.-funded companies fell 14.42 percent from a year earlier, although invested capital increased 5.34 percent, the ministry said. New EU-funded firms fell 6.94 percent year on year, while capital inflows from the region dropped 34.16 percent.

Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands and South Korea were the top three sources of FDI in the first seven months of the year.

- Fixed-asset investment

From January to July, fixed-asset investment in urban areas stood at 5.66 trillion yuan, an increase of 26.6 percent. The real estate industry completed a total investment of 1.21 trillion yuan, soaring 28.9 percent from a year earlier.

- Retail sales

China's retail sales of consumer goods grew by 16.4 percent in July to 699.8 billion yuan, the highest monthly increase since May 2004, reflecting strong household spending. The growth rate in June was 16 percent, according to the NBS.

Retail sales in cities increased by 16.7 percent, while those in counties and areas below the county level grew by 15.8 percent.

The sales value of meat, eggs and poultry jumped 51.4 percent in July from a year earlier, up from a 36 percent growth in June.

The recent acceleration of retail sales is widely attributed to higher incomes. Government efforts to provide more social welfare services may also have helped boost consumer spending.