|Mayor Ying Yong delivered the annual Report on the Work of the Government as the second session of the 15th Shanghai People’s Congress, the city’s legislative body, opened on Sunday at the Expo Center. The report reviews Shanghai’s achievements in 2018 and provides an insight into the work to be done in 2019. Here are the highlights of the report.[!--empirenews.page--]|“China has 15,000 old brands. 1,500 of them are still alive.[Of those,] 150 fare just so so, and only 10 fare well,” said Yu Mingyang, director of the Chain Brand Research Institute of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, who has been studying China’s old brands for years.[!--empirenews.page--]|To provide a warm and comfortable environment for students and teachers dining in their campus’ canteens, staff of East China University of Science and Technology have put soft and colorful covers over the stools. To drive away the cold for teachers and students, the university chose stool covers made from comfortable and soft materials.[!--empirenews.page--]|[!--empirenews.page--]|[!--empirenews.page--]|Xinya Cantonese Restaurant inaugurated its “new brand” Xinya Teahouse on the second floor of the restaurant on Nanjing Road on its 92th anniversary in September last year, bringing its teahouse business, which has disappeared for more than 80 years, back to life.[!--empirenews.page--]|[!--empirenews.page--]|Making special purchases for Chinese New Year has been a long-standing tradition for all Chinese families. While the absence of fireworks, and the fact that many families prefer to have their New Year’s Eve dinner in a restaurant rather than at home, have slightly weakened the festive ambience, Spring Festival Shopping remains an important part of the celebration. The ways people do Spring Festival Shopping, however, have also evolved over the last few decades.