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Fixed Assets Investment Doubles in China
Investment in fixed assets topped 13.87 trillion yuan (about US$1.73 trillion) in China's Ninth Five-year Plan period (1996-2000), up 117.4 percent over 1995, according to the latest report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Analysts here said that the last five years witnessed such adversities as a severe flood in 1998, the Asian financial crisis and slack domestic demand in China.
The active fiscal policy China has adopted since 1998 has not only ensured rapid growth for the Chinese economy over the past five years, but also provided a fine foundation for the next five years, they added.
According to the NBS, 61 percent of the country's economic growth, as well as 4.7 percentage points of the GDP growth, are attributable to the investment in 1998. And in 1999 two percentage points of the economic growth was thanks to 110 billion yuan of T bonds.
Analysts pointed out that the country's economy saw a favorable turn in the first half of 2000, owing largely to the newly-issued 150-billion-yuan T bonds.
However, they noted, investment in industry dropped in the five years, and most of the investment came from the national treasury, which may not be a positive sign for the economy.
The government has issued treasury bonds worth 360 billion yuan in the past three years, which mostly went to infrastructure projects, high-tech industry, environmental protection, education and the development of the western region.
The investment in western China accounted for a larger part of this sum than before, while that in the central region remained stable and that in the east was reduced. This was and will be a major characteristic of the country's investment distribution pattern, experts noted.
Investment in western China was equal to 14 percent of the total investment in the past five years, up from 12.5 percent in the Eighth Five-year Plan (1991-1995). And Investment in the east dropped from 62.7 percent in 1995 to 60.6 percent last year.
The Three Gorges Dam Project on the Yangtze River and the Xiaolangdi Project on the Yellow River, China's two largest water conservancy projects, have progressed smoothly in the past five years. The Xiaolangdi Project has become partially operational, and the Three Gorges Project is expected to be put into use in 2003.
Major national infrastructure projects play an important role in stimulating the country's domestic demand, experts said.
The NBS's report also showed that investment in real estate doubled in the past five years as well, totaling 1.9 trillion yuan.
Each Chinese urban resident occupied 9.8 square meters of housing space in 1999, a rise of 21 percent over 1995, and the rural population averaged 24.2 square meters, up 15 percent.
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