China: Facts & Stats

ECONOMY

Industry:

Industry and construction account for 49.2% of China's GDP. Around 8% of the total manufacturing output in the world comes from China itself. China ranks third worldwide in industrial output. Major industries include mining and ore processing; iron and steel; aluminum; coal; machinery; armaments; textiles and apparel; petroleum; cement; chemical; fertilizers; food processing; automobiles and other transportation equipment including rail cars and locomotives, ships, and aircraft; consumer products including footwear, toys, and electronics; telecommunications and information technology. China has become a preferred destination for the relocation of global manufacturing facilities. Its strength as an export platform has contributed to incomes and employment in China. The state-owned sector still accounts for about 30% of GDP. In recent years, authorities have been giving greater attention to the management of state assets both in the financial market as well as among state-owned-enterprises and progress has been noteworthy.

The predominant focus of development in the chemical industry is to expand the output of chemical fertilizers, plastics, and synthetic fibers. The growth of this industry has placed China among the world's leading producers of nitrogenous fertilizers. In the consumer goods sector the main emphasis is on textiles and clothing, which also form an important part of China's exports. Textile manufacturing, a rapidly growing proportion of which consists of synthetics, account for about 10 percent of the gross industrial output and continues to be important, but less so than before. The industry tends to be scattered throughout the country, but there are a number of important textile centers, including Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Harbin.

China’s construction sector has grown substantially since the early 1980s. In the twenty-first century, investment in capital construction has experienced major annual increases. In 2001 investments increased 8.5% over the previous year. In 2002 there was a 16.4% increase, followed by a 30% increase in 2003. The manufacturing sector produced 44.1% of GDP in 2004 and accounted for 11.3% of total employment in 2002. Industry and construction produced 53.1% of China’s GDP in 2005. Industry (including mining, manufacturing, construction, and power) contributed 52.9% of GDP in 2004 and occupied 22.5% of the workforce.

China is the largest producer of steel in the world and the steel industry has been rapidly increasing its steel production. Iron ore production kept pace with steel production in the early 1990s but was soon outpaced by imported iron ore and other metals in the early 2000s. Steel production, an estimated 140 million tons in 2000, was increased to 419 million tons in 2006. Much of the country's steel output comes from a large number of small-scale producing centers, one of the largest being Anshan in Liaoning.

Agriculture:

China is one of the world's largest producers and consumers of agricultural products – and some 300 million Chinese farm workers are in the industry, mostly laboring on small pieces of land about the size of U.S farms. Virtually all arable land is used for food crops. China is the world's largest producer of rice and is among the principal sources of wheat, corn (maize), tobacco, soybeans, peanuts (groundnuts), cotton, potatoes, sorghum, peanuts, tea, millet, barley, oilseed, pork, and fish. Major non-food crops, including cotton, other fibers, and oilseeds, furnish China with a small proportion of its foreign trade revenue. Agricultural exports, such as vegetables and fruits, fish and shellfish, grain and grain products, and meat and meat products, are exported to Hong Kong. Yields are high because of intensive cultivation, for example, China's cropland area is only 75% of the U.S. total, but China still produces about 30% more crops and livestock than the United States. China hopes to further increase agricultural production through improved plant stocks, fertilizers, and technology.

According to the United Nations World Food Program, in 2003, China fed 20 percent of the world's population with only 7 percent of the world's arable land. China ranks first worldwide in farm output, and, as a result of topographic and climatic factors, only about 10–15 percent of the total land area is suitable for cultivation. Of this, slightly more than half is unirrigated, and the remainder is divided roughly equally between paddy fields and irrigated areas. Nevertheless, about 60 percent of the population lives in the rural areas, and until the 1980s a high percentage of them made their living directly from farming. Since then, many have been encouraged to leave the fields and pursue other activities, such as light manufacturing, commerce, and transportation; and by the mid-1980s farming accounted for less than half of the value of rural output. Today, agriculture contributes only 13% of China's GDP.

Research & Development:

The "Key Technologies Research and Development Program", launched in 1982, was the biggest scientific and technological program in China during the 20th century. Oriented toward national economic construction, it aims to solve critical, direction-related and comprehensive problems in national economic and social development; it covers agriculture, electronic information, energy, transport, materials, resources exploration, environmental protection and medical care, and other fields. Engaging tens of thousands of researchers in over 1,000 research institutes, the Key Technologies Program has had the largest funds, employed the most people and had the greatest impact on national economy of any plan to date.

The "National Program for Key Science & Technology Projects" Plan is a critical component of the Five-Year Plans for the national economic and social development. It is updated every five years and submitted for approval by the National People's Congress.

Its strategic objectives are: to find solutions to the scientific and technological bottlenecks in the medium and long-term national economic and social development; promote the modernization of traditional industries and the optimization of industrial structures; support development of high technology and its industrialization; improve the quality of national economic development and people's life; and enhance the nation's S&T capacity.

Its major contents are: in accordance with the international trend of development and taking the factors of scientific, economic and social development into account, to carry out study and research on key S&T issues based on the principle of S&T pioneering; to concentrate efforts and the nation's resources in personnel and materials on issues tackling major S&T snags encountered in the nation's economic construction and social development.

The Program is funded by the government and supplemented by financial inputs for different industrial sectors and institutions. The government investments are in three types: completely free support, partially free support, and loans.

In March 1986, the "National Hi-tech Research and Development Program" (863 Program) was launched, after exhaustive examination by scientists. The Program set 20 themes in biology, spaceflight, information, laser, automation, energy, new materials and oceanography. Government's role is one of macro-control and support. The general research is decided on by scientific discussion, and specific projects determined by a committee of experts responsible for keeping abreast of international research developments, and reporting annually on their own fields, so as to set new research directions. Another distinctive feature of the program is that its results can be quickly industrialized.

A national key program for development of basic scientific research, the 973 Program was launched in 1998. It mainly involves multi-disciplinary, comprehensive research on important scientific issues in such fields as agriculture, energy, information, resources, population, health, and materials, providing theoretical basis and scientific foundations for solving problems. The program encourages outstanding scientists to carry out key basic research in cutting-edge science and important sci-tech issues in fields with a great bearing on socio-economic development. Representing China's national goals, it aims to provide strong scientific and technological support for significant issues in China's 21st century socio-economic development.

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