Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, August 21, 2003
Beijing Ranks 23 in Economic Development Speed in China
Though with the GDP of RMB 151.61 billion yuan in the first half of this year, creating a rise of 9.6 percent, Beijing, the "soaring capital" universally acknowledged, can only rank the 23 place among 30 provinces, automatic regions and municipalities in China in a situation in which all places are vying one another for development.
Though with the GDP of RMB 151.61 billion yuan in the first half of this year, creating a rise of 9.6 percent, Beijing, the "soaring capital" universally acknowledged, can only rank the 23 place among 30 provinces, automatic regions and municipalities in China in a situation in which all places are vying one another for development.
According to the hot statistics out from Being Statistic Bureau, the increasing speed of Inner Mongolia (15.7 percent), Tianjin (13.7 percent) and Jiangsu (13 percent) are respectively listed on the top three. Among China's four municipalities which always carry out a latent competition, the GDP of Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing has quietly got a respective increase of 13.7 percent, 11.4 percent and 11.1 percent with Beijing to lag behind.
The development rates of Beijing in other fields are also not satisfactory. According to the statistics, in the first half of the year the rate of industrial development in Beijing ranks 26th, the increasing rate of the investment in the fixed assets ranks the last one, the increasing rate of export ranks 20th, the increasing rate of local finance ranks 16th, and the consumer price index ranks 17th. However, in the aforesaid aspects, Hainan, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Shanghai and Inner Mongolia ranks respectively at the top.
However, Beijing ranks among the top in terms of the increasing rate of the residents' income and the residents' consumption according to the statistics, the income increasing rate of Beijing citizens (RMB 7039.7 yuan) in the fist half of this year is only next to that of Shanghai (RMB 7409 yuan). On the other hand, their consumption rate is also excellent, witnessing an increasing rate in retailing business to rank at the top of the country in the first half of the year.
According to the relevant officials, some factors leading to Beijing's lagging behind in the rate of economic development are: first of all, Beijing suffered the heaviest losses (over RMB 3 billion yuan) because of the SARS epidemic in the first half year, which led to the economic decrease of about two percentage points. Secondly, the economic aggregate of Beijing is huge, and it is very difficult to accomplish the increase over 9 percent. Thirdly, Beijing lacks sufficient new spots for economic growth.