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Report on China's economic, social development plan [Full Text]
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-03-21 11:23

Energy, transportation and other basic industries and infrastructure enjoyed significant growth. Coal output in 2007 reached 2.54 billion tons, 6.9% more than in 2006. Total power-generating capacity was increased by more than 100 million kilowatts, and the total amount of electricity generated was up 14.4%. Output of refined petroleum rose by 7.5%, 3.1 percentage points higher than the increase of the previous year. There was continued improvement in the transportation infrastructure. A total of 143,595 kilometers of highways was added, including 8,059kilometers of expressways, and construction of the five vertical and seven horizontal national trunk highways totaling 35,000 kilometers was basically completed. Newly built railway lines opened to traffic totaled 678 kilometers, double-track railways 480 kilometers and electrified railways 938 kilometers. Annual cargo handling capacity of berths for 10,000 ton-class or larger ships increased by 439.16 million tons. In addition, five more civilian airports were built and expansion of Beijing Capital International Airport was completed. These improvements in the transportation infrastructure helped ensure adequate capacity for the transport of key materials.

The service industry enjoyed faster development. The guidelines for accelerating development of the service sector were carried out to give play to the guiding role of government grants in promoting overall growth of the service industry. Total added value of the service sector for the year reached 9.6328 trillion yuan. The industrial structure is now dominated by the service sector in a number of large and medium-sized cities in China, with total added value of the service sector accounting for 50% or more of local GDP in some cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Furthermore, there has been improvement in the structure of the service industry itself, with accelerated growth of modern services. The number of Internet users in China now exceeds 200 million, making the country second in the world. Online shopping for goods and services accounted for 13% of total retail sales in the country.

Figure 5. Added Value of the Service Sector

Development among different regions continued to be more balanced. A total of 55.6 billion yuan from the central government allocations for development projects for the year was spent in the western region, 4.1 billion yuan more than the previous year. Policy-related support for border areas and ethnic minority areas in the region also increased last year. Construction was started on ten key projects in the region, bases were set up to help develop industries to take advantage of local characteristics and strengths, a number of well known, high quality brand names were established and human resource development in the region made significant progress. In northeast China, fresh progress was made in developing the equipment manufacturing, raw material processing and non-staple agricultural product processing industries. The pace of reorganization and restructuring of enterprises in key industries was accelerated. Initial success was attained in transforming the economies of cities formerly reliant on natural resources. Efforts to control sinkholes in coalmining areas were accelerated. A total of 27.2 million square meters of shantytowns were turned into proper residential areas in northeast China. The guidelines for boosting development of the central region were implemented. The guidelines specified which areas of the six provinces in the central region would best fit the northeast China revitalization model and which ones would best fit the development model of the western region. Further progress was made in developing grain production bases in the central region, steady progress was made in strengthening bases for energy and raw material production and centers for modern equipment manufacturing, and significant progress was made in developing integrated transportation hubs for the central region. In the eastern region, the pace of improvement in the pattern of economic development was accelerated, development of high-tech industries and modern services was accelerated, and the capacity for independent innovation was enhanced in the equipment manufacturing, information technology and biotechnology industries. Clusters of cities in the Yangtze Delta and the Pearl River Delta and in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area made steady improvement in their ability to pool resources and lead the nation in development.