Beijing High-tech Sector Grows Fast

Along with the rapid development of Beijing's high-tech industry, electronics and telecommunications facility manufacturing has become the capital's key industrial sector.

The overall output value of the sector was listed top in Beijing, making up 27 percent of the city's total industrial output value, 17 percentage points up on that of 1995.

During the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1996-2000), high-tech industry made great progress in Beijing.

The value-added output of the industrial sector recorded 16.49 billion yuan (US$1.99 billion) in 1999, or a 2.1-fold jump from 7.9 billion yuan (US$951 million) registered in 1995, the last year of the Eighth Five-Year Plan (1991-95).

Last year's value-added output for high-tech industry made up 25.4 per cent of the city's industry as a whole, 8.2 per cent growth on 1995.

Experts attributed the sharp increase to the government's policy and financial support, robust demand for high-tech products and the capital city's advantages in terms of technology, talent and a sound environment for the development of the high-tech industry.

A source from the municipal government revealed that, during the first four years of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, Beijing's large and middle-sized businesses invested more than 3.5 billion yuan (US$421 million) in researching and developing more than 6,000 high-tech projects.

During the first seven months of this year, Beijing's high-tech industry generated 11.7 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) in added-value output, a 39.9 per cent rise on the same period last year.

Meanwhile, tax levied from the high-tech sector recorded 4.05 billion yuan (US$487.9 million), a 2.2 per cent increase on the corresponding period of 1999.

Due to the rapid development of high-tech industry and innovations in the traditional industrial sector, Beijing's average annual growth rate for overall industrial output value reached 18.7 per cent on a year-on-year basis from 1995 to 1999, 5.5 percentage points up over the Eighth Five-Year Plan and ranking first among China's municipalities. (chinadaily.com.cn)



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