Declining Growth Helps Reduce Product StockpileThe stockpile of China's industrial products decreased by a big margin over the past five years, as efforts in enterprise reform and restructuring of the industrial sector began to take effect.Sources with the National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday that industrial goods in stock grew by an average 8.9 percent annually from 1996 to 2000, down 8.3 percentage points from the period of 1991-1995. During the same period, the annual growth in industrial value went down only 5.9 percentage points from the 1991-1995 period, indicating a faster decrease in the stockpile. By the end of 2000, the total value of industrial products in stock stood at 675.4 billion yuan, and newly added stock during the 1996-2000 period accounted for only 14 percent of the total, 96 billion yuan less than the figure in the period of 1991-1995. Restructuring and output control in major industrial sectors, such as textile, steel and coal contributed significantly to the positive change, officials with the Bureau said. More than 10 million outdated cotton spindles were eliminated from 1996-2000, and as a result, the growth in stockpile decreased from 37 percent in 1995 to only 1.5 percent in 2000. A stockpile of coal were reduced by 9.9 percent and 18.2 percent, respectively in 1999 and 2000 from the previous year, involving a total amount of 60 million tons. The bureau concluded that China has reversed the situation of high industrial growth accompanied by a large stockpile, and the industrial sector has moved on to a sound track with a balanced growth of industrial output value and the stockpiled industrial goods. |
| People's Daily Online --- http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/ |