Major Industries

Development

In 2003, the industrial added value of the state-owned enterprises as well as non-state-owned enterprises which have an annual sales volume of five million yuan or above was 4,104.5 billion yuan, and the amount of profit reached its highest ever level of 815.2 billion, or an increase of 17 percent and 42.7 percent, respectively, over the previous year, presenting a good situation of the simultaneous development of speed, quality and profit. Since 1996, China has been in the lead in the production of steel, coal, cement, farm-use chemical fertilizer and television sets.

Diverse Economic Sectors

In 1978, China had only the public-ownership economy, state-owned enterprises making up 77.6 percent and collectively owned enterprises, 22.4 percent. The policy of reform and opening-up has given extensive scope to the common development of various economic sectors. The individual and privately owned industrial enterprises and enterprises with foreign, Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan investments have mushroomed.

The reform of state-owned enterprises has always been the key link of China's economic restructuring. The Chinese government has made various experiments, trying every means to solve the problem of long-term, extensive losses incurred by state-owned enterprises. By 2003, some 80 percent of the 4,371 key enterprises in China had undergone reform and adopted the company system, and over 90 percent of the medium- and small-sized enterprises had reformed their systems. After being reorganized into joint stock companies, the economic profit of the state-owned enterprises increased steadily and their overall strength and quality were remarkably improved, gaining continuously in their control, influence and lead in the whole national economy.

In 2003, of the total added value of the state-owned enterprises as well as non-state-owned enterprises which have an annual sales volume of five million yuan or above, the state-owned and state stock holding enterprises took up 47.3 percent; collectively owned enterprises, 6.8 percent; and the rest were taken up by other non-public sectors including enterprises with foreign, Hong Kong, Macao or Taiwan investments, and individual and privately owned enterprises, forming a dynamic situation of the co-existence of diversified economic elements.

In 2003, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration of the State Council gave approval to 48 state-owned enterprises to transfer part of their property rights and stock rights which involved some 22.5 billion yuan of the state-owned assets and their rights.

Power Industry

Of all Chinese industries, the thermal, hydro and nuclear power industries have developed the most rapidly. Since the 1990s, the installed capacity of generators increased from 100 million kw to 385 million kw by the end of 2003. The country produced 1.9108 trillion kwh of electricity in 2003. Presently, China is the world's second in the installed capacity of generators and generated electricity.

Main power grids now cover all cities and most rural areas of China. Power grids of 500 kv have begun to replace the old 220-kv grids in undertaking cross-provincial and cross-regional transmission and exchange operations. An advanced control automation system with computers as the mainstay has been universally adopted, and has proved practical. The establishment of the six cross-provincial (or cross-autonomous regional) power grids, excluding those in northwestern China, and five independent provincial 500-kv main power grids, and the completion of a series of large power stations indicate that China's power industry has entered a new era featuring larger generating units, large power plants, large power grids, ultra-high voltage and automation.

The sufficient power supply in China is mainly because of the rapid growth of the fuel coal output. Starting from the 1980s, the Chinese government made a great investment in the construction of a large number of modernized coalmines, resulting in the gradual increase of coal output. Since 1989, the annual coal output has maintained more than one billion tons, meeting the needs of the national economic development. Now China has the ability to design, construct, equip and administer 10-million-ton open-cut coalmines and large and medium-sized mining areas. China's coal washing and dressing technologies and abilities have constantly improved and coal liquefaction and underground gasification are being introduced. In 2001 China exported over 80 million tons of coal, becoming the second largest coal exporting country in the world.

Petroleum and natural gas are China's important energy resources. In 1995 the annual crude oil output exceeded 150 million tons, and in seven years running from 1997 to 2003, topped 160 million tons, ranking fifth in the world. The development of oil industry has accelerated the growth of local economies and relevant industries, such as manufacturing, iron and steel industries, transport and communications. In 1996, China's natural gas output was more than 20 billion cu m, a figure that had increased steadily in the following years, and reached 35.02 billion cu m in 2003. The increases in the output of petroleum and natural gas have greatly raised the proportions of the consumption of oil and natural gas in the total energy consumption. The proportions of the consumption amount of petroleum and natural gas in the nation's total one-time energy consumption rose from 17.5 percent and 1.8 percent in 1995 to 22.7 percent and 2.8 percent in 2003, respectively.

In 2003, China's nuclear-power-generated electricity topped a historical record with an increase of 120 percent over 2002. By 2020, China plans to build 27-million-kw nuclear power facilities, in addition to the 8.7-million-kw nuclear power generation capacity already in production and under construction.

Manufacturing and Automobiles

China's manufacturing industry can provide complete sets of large advanced equipment, including power generating equipment such as large gas turbines, large pump storage groups and nuclear power sets, ultra-high voltage direct-current transmission and transformation equipment, complete sets of large metallurgical, fertilizer and petro-chemical equipment, city track transport equipment, and new paper-making and textile machinery. Electro-mechanical products ranked first in the export volume of China for eight years in succession from 1996 to 2003. In 2003, the export volume of electro-mechanical products reached US$227.5 billion, an increase of 44.8 percent over that of 2002, or 11.1 percentage point more than the growth rate of the general export trade.

In the 1990s, the automobile industry developed as one of the country's key industries. The output of automobiles increased from 1.45 million in 1995 to 3.25 million in 2002. In 2003, both the production and sales volume of automobiles reached a record figure of 4.44 million and 4.37 million, respectively. As a high-grade consumable durable with the lowest rate of possession in China, cars have become a commodity with the fastest growing retail rate. To indicate the potential for the development of the industry — some 12 million households in China are capable of purchasing cars, according to a recent survey.