• Revenue up by 15.8% to 75.4 billion yuan in 2025: report.
• Company’s profits up by 6.5% to 3.4 billion yuan in 2025.
• Chengdu sales in first-quarter rose almost 80% on year.
  

China’s AVIC Chengdu Aircraft Corporation, the maker of J-10C aircraft used by Pakistan to down India’s French-made planes in May last year, has reported a significant surge in profits, according a report by Bloomberg.

Revenue increased by 15.8% to 75.4 billion yuan ($11 billion) in 2025, with profit up 6.5% to 3.4 billion yuan in 2025, the publication cited the jetmaker as saying in a statement.

The numbers are the highest-ever for the company, Bloomberg reported, adding that Chengdu’s first-quarter sales rose almost 80% on year.

The Pakistan Air Force (PAF) inducted J-10C in March 2022, in a major boost to the country’s military capabilities to defend airspace.

At the time, the government said that the fighter jet could carry more advanced, fourth-generation air-to-air missiles, including the short-range PL-10 and the beyond-visual-range PL-15.

The fighter jet saw its first combat use in May 2025 when India launched an unprovoked attack on Pakistan on May 6, following an attack on tourists in the Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

Pakistan, during the 87-hour conflict, downed seven Indian fighter jets, including French-made Rafale, and dozens of drones.

The four-day war saw Pakistan successfully employing the Chinese-made HQ-9 air-defence system, PL-15 air-to-air missiles, and J-10C fighter aircraft, credited with downing multiple Indian aircraft.

The PAF also used its JF-17 Thunder jets to destroy India’s S-400 air defence system in Adampur by using hypersonic missiles.

The war between the two nuclear-armed nations ended on May 10 with a ceasefire agreement brokered by the US.

Months after the conflict, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Director-General (DG) Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry praised the performance of Chinese-made weapons, saying they performed “exceptionally well,” The News reported, citing Bloomberg.

“Of course, lately, recent Chinese platforms, they’ve demonstrated exceptionally well,” Lt Gen Chaudhry said in an interview in October last year.

In November last year, a report presented to the United States Congress acknowledged Pakistan’s “military success over India” in the war.

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission report — reviewing US-China security and foreign affairs — stated that Pakistan employed advanced Chinese weaponry to enhance its military edge over India.

Authorities in the United Arab Emirates have dismantled an international drug trafficking network worth more than 3.3 million dirhams and arrested 13 suspects after a month-long operation, officials said.

The UAE National Drug Enforcement Authority said the operation was carried out with Dubai and Sharjah police and in coordination with Bahrain.

The suspects included nationals from India, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt and Sri Lanka. Four Indians and four Iranians were among those arrested, along with two Pakistanis, while one suspect each was from Egypt and Sri Lanka.

Authorities said the network was led by an Asian drug trafficker operating from outside the UAE.

The ringleader was arrested abroad with the help of Bahraini authorities and brought to the UAE to face trial.

Investigations showed the group received instructions from the overseas leader to distribute drugs across the country.

Police seized more than 56kg of narcotics, over 8,000 psychotropic pills and a large quantity of electronic cigarettes filled with hashish oil.

Officials said the group was supplying drugs inside the UAE.

Authorities said the operation is part of a wider strategy to target both local dealers and networks run from abroad.

They added that international cooperation remains key to tackling cross-border crime.

Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said Wednesday a proposed $9 billion megaport and city project on the strategic Great Nicobar Island is “destruction dressed in development’s language”.

The island, nearly 3,000 kilometres (1,860 miles) from New Delhi, sits at the entrance to one of the world’s busiest waterways — the Strait of Malacca, through which up to 30% of global maritime trade passes.

The plan to develop the 910 square kilometre (351 square miles) island with a container port, airport and city see swathes of pristine rainforest cut down, including land inhabited for millennia by communities with minimal outside contact.

“What is being done in Great Nicobar is one of the biggest scams and gravest crimes against this country’s natural and tribal heritage in our lifetime,” Gandhi said in a video message posted on social media, showing him walking through the island’s forests.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the Great Nicobar Island Project “is of strategic, defence and national importance”, and India´s environmental court gave the green light in February.

But Gandhi said he would try to stop it.

“What I have seen is not a project,” he added. “It is millions of trees marked for the axe. It is 160 square kilometres of rainforest condemned to die. It is communities that have been ignored while their homes have been snatched away.”

Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav last year insisted that the project “poses no threat to the island’s tribal groups” and “does not jeopardise the eco-sensitivity of the region”.

Around 9,000 people live on the island, including around 1,200 from Indigenous groups, including the Nicobarese and the Shompen, hunter-gatherers who have shunned contact with outsiders, according to rights group Survival International.

“As well as devastating the local environment and the Nicobarese Indigenous communities, the Great Nicobar project would destroy the Shompen, a largely uncontacted people who live in the rainforest,” Survival’s Sophie Grig said Wednesday.

She called the megaport an “ill-conceived project, which must be cancelled before an entire people are wiped out”.