Premier Making an Inventory of Chinese Economy

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, March 05, 2003

Premier Making an Inventory of Chinese Economy

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Premier Making an Inventory of Chinese Economy

Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji has said that over the past five years, China's national economy has maintained good growth momentum, and important advances were made in the strategic restructuring of the economy.

Zhu made this remark when he delivered the Report on the Work of the Government at the opening of the First Session of the Tenth National People's Congress Wednesday.

The five years since the First Session of the Ninth National People's Congress have been an extraordinary period, the report says.

Soon after this government took office, the Asian financial crisis struck, and world economic growth stagnated, according to the report.

Domestically, irrationalities in the industrial structure became critical, and large numbers of workers were laid off from state-owned enterprises. Catastrophic floods struck in 1998 and 1999.

Under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese people of all ethnic groups have forged ahead, worked still harder in solidarity, surmounted numerous difficulties, and made great achievements in reform, opening up and economic and social development that have won worldwide recognition. "We have attained the strategic goals for the second stage of our modernization drive and begun our march towards the third stage goals," the report says.

According to the report, during the past five years, the national economy maintained good growth momentum, and important advances were made in the strategic restructuring of the economy as follows:

The economy maintained a high growth rate.

China's GDP rose from 7.4 trillion yuan in 1997 to 10.2 trillion yuan in 2002, an average annual increase of 7.7 percent, when calculated in constant prices. Notable results were achieved in the readjustment of the industrial structure.

The supply of grain and other major agricultural products took a historic shift from chronic shortages to an overall balance with surpluses during good years. High and new technology industries, such as the IT industry, expanded rapidly.

The transformation of traditional industries was accelerated. Modern service industries developed rapidly. The quality and efficiency of economic growth improved constantly. National tax revenue grew by a large margin every year.

Total fiscal revenue rose from 0.8651 trillion yuan in 1997 to 1.8914 trillion yuan in 2002, an average annual increase of 205.3 billion yuan. China's foreign exchange reserves climbed from 139.9 billion US dollars to 286.4 billion US dollars.

Investment in fixed assets over the five years totaled 17.2 trillion yuan. In particular, based on the issuance of 660 billion Yuan of long-term construction treasury bonds, 3.28 trillion yuan of bank loans and funds from other sources were generated for investment, allowing us to accomplish many large projects we had been planning for years but unable to undertake for lack of resources.

The productive forces reached a new high, and the country's economic strength and ability to withstand risks and compete internationally grew significantly.

Remarkable achievements were made in infrastructure development, the report says.

By concentrating our resources, China completed a number of key infrastructure projects of nationwide significance. The country built water conservancy projects on a scale larger than any other time since the founding of New China. The investment in these projects nationwide totaled 356.2 billion yuan for the five years, which was equal to the total investment in this field from 1950 through 1997 after adjusting for price changes, according to the report.

A number of key water conservancy projects were launched or completed. Work on reinforcing 35,000 km of river embankments was started. Over 3,500 km of main dikes of the Yangtze River and nearly 1,000 km of dikes of the Yellow River have been reinforced, and their capacity to withstand floods has been greatly increased.

The second phase of the Three Gorges water control project on the Yangtze River, which has attracted world attention, will soon be completed; water control facilities such as the one at Xiaolangdi on the Yellow River became operational, and construction on the South-North Water Diversion Project was begun.

Transport developed on an unprecedented scale, and a comprehensive modern transport system began to take shape. In these five years, China invested 1.2343 trillion yuan in highway building, which was equal to 170 percent of the figure for the period from 1950 through 1997 after adjusting for price changes.

The total length of highways open to traffic increased from 1.23 million km in 1997 to 1.76 million km in 2002, of which expressways increased from 4,771 km to 25,200 km, lifting China from the 39th to the second place in the world.

Railway length increased from 65,969 km to 71,500 km. Over the past five years, construction of 5,944 km of new railway lines, of which 4,603 km are double-track and 5,704 km are electrified, was completed. A total of 50 airports were either newly built or expanded. The annual cargo handling capacity of dock berths for 10,000 DWT or larger ships increased by 144 million tons.

Construction of postal and telecommunications facilities greatly expanded. The length of installed long-distance optical cables increased from 150,000 km in 1997 to 470,000 km in 2002, and the number of fixed-line and mobile phone subscribers increased from 83.54 million to 421 million, ranking China first in the world.

Construction in the energy sector was further intensified. The installed power-generating capacity increased from 254 million kw in 1997 to 353 million kw in 2002, the report says.

The program for developing the western region made a good start, the report says.

Over the past three years since the introduction of the western development strategy, the government has given a powerful push to the region's development by increasing investment, stepping up transfer payments and introducing preferential fiscal and taxation policies. Work was begun on 36 new key projects, which called for a total investment of over 600 billion yuan, it says.

Smooth progress was made on such major projects as the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, the diversion of natural gas and electricity from the western to the eastern regions, water control projects and trunk highways.

Work was accelerated to ensure that every county seat is served by asphalt roads, that every township has access to electricity, and that every village enjoys radio and television reception.

China's capability for sustainable development was enhanced. The spending on environmental protection and ecological development in the five years reached 580 billion yuan, amounting to 170 percent of the figure from 1950 through 1997.

Six forest ecological projects -- reforesting formerly cultivated land, protecting natural forests and controlling the sources of dust storms affecting Beijing and Tianjin -- were carried out in full.

During these five years, an additional 27.87 million hectares of land was covered with trees; 31.53 million hectares of hills were cordoned off for afforestation, and about 3.82 million hectares of formerly cultivated land were returned to forests. Soil erosion on 266,000 square km of land and desertification on about 5.7 million hectares of land were brought under control.

The tendency towards worsening environmental pollution has, on the whole, been arrested. New progress was made in the protection of natural resources. With the natural population growth rate down to 6.45 per thousand, China has entered a new period of low and stable birthrate, according to the report.

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