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1. FACTBOX- China's economy rockets through 60 years
BEIJING, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- China's top 500 companies achieved a net profit nearly double their U.S. counterparts in 2009, freshly boosting China's rapid economic expansion in the run-up to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
A survey published jointly by the China Enterprise Confederation and the China Enterprise Directors Association on September 6 showed that the net margins of China's top 500 registered 170.6 billion U.S. dollars compared to 98.9 billion U.S. dollars of the American top 500.
This is partly thanks Chinese enterprises suffering a lighter assault during the global financial crisis but the overall performance is mainly attributed to substantial growth in China's economy as a whole.
Here are the facts and figures of China's economic development during past 60 years.
GDP
China's gross domestic product (GDP) surpassed 30 trillion yuan (3.86 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2008, 77 times more than in 1952 after deducting the price-rise factor. It accounted for 27.2 percent of GDP of the United States, ranking third in the world.
China's GDP in 1960 was 145.7 billion yuan, roughly equal to Japan, but lagged far behind in 1977 when Japan's economy was more than three times bigger than China's. However, China's GDP made up78.6 percent of Japan's in 2008 and many scholars predicated that the country would surpass Japan in 2009 to become the second largest economy in the world.
China's per capita GDP amounted to 2,770 U.S. dollars, turning from a low-income country to a lower-middle-income one in accordance with World Bank standards.
INDUSTRIAL STRUCTURE
China's industrial structure is undergoing change as it develops from an agricultural country to an industrial one.
The proportion of primary industry in GDP dropped from 51 percent to 11.3 percent while secondary industry climbed from 20.8percent to 48.6 percent, and tertiary industry from 28.2 percent to 40.1 percent.
China's urban residents accounted for 10.6 percent of the total population immediately after 1949 when rural-to-urban mobility was rather rigid. Since then China's urbanization has been speeding up. The urban proportion increased to 45.7 percent in 2008, and urban and rural areas became more integrated in the country's economic and social development.
POPULATION AND FOOD SUPPLY
With its large population, China's cultivated land, fresh water and energy resources are relatively lacking. Plus, a weak ecological environment and labor quality sometimes puts further strain on the country's economic development.
China has a population of 1.328 billion, one-fifth of the world's total. The family planning policy implemented by the government in the 1970s helped reduce ongoing totals by more than 400 million people, resulting in a four-year delay for the advent of the planet's 6 billion population day. Population control has relieve the pressures on natural resources and job markets.
China's total grain output was 113 million tonnes in 1949, or 209 kilograms a head per year. In 2008, the grain output increased by 3.7 times that of 1949, reaching 529 million tonnes, the highest in the world.
China's cereal, meat and cotton output are all the largest in the world.
China's grain reserve in 2008 doubled the world's average, ensuring the country's capacity to solve the problem of food supply.
ENERGY PRODUCTION
Energy is the bottleneck of industrial development. China's energy self-sufficiency rate has exceeded 90 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics in 2008. China has a multi-layered energy supply system covering coal, electricity, petroleum and gas and renewable resources.
China became the second largest oil refiner in 2007. In 2008,the country's oil production totaled 189.728 million tonnes, 1581 times than that in 1949.
China's energy consumption is going green. The coal consumption dropped from 95 percent in 1952 to 68.7 percent in 2008 while the oil consumption rose from 3.37 percent in 1952 to 18 percent in 2008. The figure for natural gas increase from 0.2 percent to 3.8 percent, hydro energy, nuclear and wind power from 1.61 percent to 9.5 percent.
FOREIGN TRADE
China's foreign exports and imports registered only 1.14 billion U.S. dollars in 1950, making up less than one percent of the global total trade volume. In 2008, the country's total foreign trade volume reached 2.5616 trillion U.S. dollars, making up 8.86 percent of the global total, and making China the world's third largest trader.
By the end of 2008, accumulated outward direct investment from non-financial sectors had added up to 141.8 billion U.S. dollars. Foreign project contracts are being carried out in more than 190 countries, to talling 263 billion U.S. dollars in terms of turnover. As many as 4.62 million Chinese are now working overseas.
LIFE AND CULTURE
China's online population numbered 338 million as of June 30. China leads the world in netizen quantity, broadband use and national top-level domain registry.
Foreign students in China climbed from 1,236 in 1978 to 223,500 in 2008, increasing nearly 180 times.
China has set up 305 Confucius Institutes and classes in 78countries, attracting around 130,000 registered students.
PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES
The country's task to keep 1.8 billion mu bottom line is tough. China's cultivated land decreased by 124 million mu (8.27 million hectares) to 1.827 billion mu (121.8 million hectares).
In 2009, China heightened its poverty line, marked according to per capita annual net income, to 1,196 yuan (175 U.S. dollars),which brought the country's impoverished population to 40.07 million.
It is hard work to bridge income discrepancies, development gaps between rural and urban areas and between poor and rich areas. China's urban residents earned 1.86 times more than farmers in 1988, but 3.33 times more than farmers in 2007. And the gap has widened still in recent years.
China is anticipating embracing another brisk 60 years, by giving much impetus to economic, cultural and ecological development and establishing closer ties with the international community.
Source: Xinhua (www.chinaview.cn)
2. China publishes white paper on Xinjiang
BEIJING, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government Monday published a white paper on the development and progress in northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, stressing national unification, ethnic unity, social stability are the "lifeblood" for the region's development and progress.
The 52-page document is divided into seven sections: Swift Economic Development; Remarkable Improvement in People's Lives; Steady Development of Social Programs; Preservation of Ethnic Cultures; Upholding Ethnic Equality and Unity; Protecting Citizens' Rights of Freedom of Religious Belief; and Safeguarding National Unity and Social Stability.
The paper, released by the State Council Information Office, reviewed the profound changes that have taken place in the past 60 years in Xinjiang, which accounts for about one sixth of the country's land territory. Huge progress was also made in areas including economy, society, education, science, arts, health and medical services, employment, social security, as well as the preservation of ethnic cultures, according to the paper.
Prior to the founding ceremony of the People's Republic of China on Oct. 1, 1949, Xinjiang witnessed its peaceful liberation. Since 1949, particularly after China's reform and opening-up in the late 1970s, through concerted efforts by all peoples of Xinjiang, and of support from the central government and the entire nation, Xinjiang has entered an era of rapid economic and social progress, with the local residents enjoying the most tangible benefits.
The local GDP in 2008 stood at 420.3 billion yuan, which is 86.4 times higher than that of 1952, three years before the establishment of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, up 8.3 percent on average annually, it said. In 2008, the per-capita net income of farmers in Xinjiang was 3,503 yuan, which is 28 times more than that of 1978, while the per-capita disposable income of urban residents reached 11,432 yuan, which is 35 times more than that of 1978, it said.
Huge progress was also made in areas including education, science, arts, health and medical services, employment, social security, as well as the preservation of ethnic cultures, according to the paper. In Xinjiang, citizens of every ethnic group enjoy the rights prescribed by the Constitution and laws, including freedom of religious belief, and rights to vote and stand for election, the rights to equally administer state affairs, to receive education, to use and develop their own spoken and written languages, and to preserve and advance the traditional culture of their own peoples, according to the paper.
The number of Xinjiang's cadres from minority ethnic groups was46,000 in 1955. It shot up to 363,000 in 2008, accounting for 51.25 percent of the total number of cadres in Xinjiang. Most people of Xinjiang's 10 major ethnic minority groups, with a total population of over 11.3 million, believe in Islam now. The number of Islamic mosques has soared from 2,000 in the early days of the reform and opening-up drive to 24,300 now, and the body of clergy from 3,000 to over 28,000, according to the paper.
"All these achievements would have been impossible for Xinjiang without national unification, social stability, or ethnic unity," the paper said.
However, for years, the "East Turkistan" forces in and outside Xinjiang have been trumpeting national separatism, and plotted and organized a number of bloody incidents of terror and violence, seriously jeopardizing national unification, social stability and ethnic unity, thus seriously disrupting Xinjiang's development and progress, it said.
According to incomplete statistics, from 1990 to 2001, the "East Turkistan" forces both inside and outside China created more than 200 bloody incidents of terror and violence in Xinjiang, by means of explosions, assassinations, poisoning, arson, attacking, riots and assaults, it said.
In 2002, they again organized several bloody incidents of terror and violence in Xinjiang. The most recent "July 5" riot in Urumqi caused huge losses in lives and property of the people of various ethnic groups, it said.
"Ethnic unity is a blessing for all peoples, while separatism would be disastrous," it said. "It has become clearer for the people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang that national unification, ethnic unity, social stability, plus the coexistence and development in harmony of all peoples who share weal and woe are the lifeblood for the region's development and progress," the paper said.
Source: Xinhua (www.chinaview.cn)
Extended Reading
2A. Full text: Development and Progress in Xinjiang
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/21/content_12090477.htm
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