Chinese economy as hot as ever
BEIJING - Despite the government's efforts to cool down the scorching economy, China's gross domestic product (GDP) totaled 13.65 trillion yuan (US$1.65 trillion) in 2004, jumping unexpectedly by 9.5% year-on-year, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said here on Tuesday.
Record levels of exports and a surge in farm production and retail sales were the main engines driving growth in the past quarter, amid the government's bid to check industrial expansion and keep a rein on inflation. Exports rose 33% to a record $63.8 billion in December and retail sales climbed 15%, the biggest gain in seven months, official figures show. In a sign that government measures are working to some extent, consumer prices increased 2.4%, the smallest rise in 10 months, while industrial production registered the slowest rise in more than a year.
According to preliminary figures, the added value of primary industry rose 6.3% to 2.07 trillion yuan ($250 billion) last year, the NBS said in a press release. That of secondary and tertiary industries rose 11.1% and 8.3%, to 7.24 trillion yuan and 4.34 trillion yuan respectively, it added. NBS director Li Deshui said China had scored "tangible" outcome in cementing and improving macro-control and curbed "unhealthy and unstable" factors in its economic development. The national economy maintained a stable and relatively fast growth trend, averting a roller coaster, he noted.
China recorded 6.28 trillion yuan in its overall added industrial value last year, increasing by an annualized 11.5% - making it the biggest contributor to economic expansion. Major industrial enterprises, or firms whose annual sales revenues exceed 5 million yuan, registered a 16.7% rise in their added value in the past year, down slightly from the previous year.
Coal output went up 15% while power output was up 14.9%. Productions of pig iron, crude steel and rolled steel rose by 24.1%, 32.2% and 23.5% respectively. The automobile sector churned out 5.2 million units. According to Li, total profits for China's industrial sector stood at 1.13 trillion yuan, up 38.1%. Investment in fixed assets totaled 7.01 trillion yuan, up 25.8% year-on-year, or a drop of 1.9 percentage points from the previous year. Fixed asset investment in urban areas rose 21% from a year earlier in December after climbing 25% in November.
Consumer spending remained stable but showed invigorating signs last year, with the combined retail sales volume growing 13.3% year-on-year to 5.4 trillion yuan in 2004. It climbed 10.2% after deducting price hikes, one percentage point higher on a yearly basis. Urban and rural retail sales rose 14.7% and 10.7% in the year.
Per capita net income of rural residents rose 6.8% last year to 2,936 yuan, the strongest growth in the past seven years. Per capita disposable incomes in urban areas, home to a third of the nation's 1.3 billion people, rose 7.7% in real terms to 9,422 yuan. By the end of 2004, the saving deposits of China's urban and rural population totaled more than 11.95 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.59 trillion yuan over the end of 2003. Last year, the number of newly employed reached 9.8 million among urban residents, 800,000 more than the anticipated goal. As a result, the urban registered unemployment rate dropped to 4.2% at the end of 2004, down 0.1 percentage point from a year ago.
Autumn grain output, which accounts for about 60% of annual production, rose 10%, the statistics bureau said. Total grain output in 2004 reached 469.5 million tons, a hefty increase of 38.8 million tons, or 9%, over the previous year. Both total grain production and the average yield of cereal crops in 2004 were at an all-time high. Average per-hectare grain yield was 4,620 kilograms, up 6.6%. Total cotton production reached 6.32 million tons, up 30%; oil-bearing seed output was 30.57 million tons, up 8.8%; output of sugar-bearing crops was 95.28 million tons, down by 1.2%; total meat output was 72.60 million tons, up 4.7%; and the output of aquatic products amounted to 48.55 million tons, up 3.2%.
China's total value of imports and exports in 2004 reached $1.15 trillion (9.5 trillion yuan), up 35.7% over the previous year. Of the total, exports grew by 35.4% to $593.4 billion, and imports by 36% to $561.4 billion, with a surplus of $32 billion, or $6.5 billion more than in 2003. In 2004, foreign direct investment actually utilized in China totaled $60.6 billion, up 13.3% from a year earlier. By the end of last year, China's foreign exchange reserves reached $609.9 billion, up $206.7 billion from the previous year.
In a sign that the economy is far from cooling, China imported 122.72 tons of crude oil last year, up 34.8% over the previous year. Last year, China imported 37.88 million tons of refined oil, a rise of 34.1%. It also exported 5.49 million tons of crude and 11.46 million tons of refined oil in 2004. In 2003, China imported 91.12 million tons of crude valued at $19.81 billion and 28.24 million tons of refined oil valued at $5.86 billion.
Last year, the government had relied heavily on administrative orders to slacken investment in industries, especially in the red-hot ones such as steel, autos and aluminum, apart from cracking the whip on real estate and infrastructure projects. But the focus this year will clearly be market-based measures, including interest rates, to control the pace of growth. The People's Bank of China has already raised interest rates for first time in a decade, on October 29. The government said it aims to slow growth to about 8% this year, which means there could be more of such market measures in the months to come.
(Asia Pulse/XIC)
atimes.com |
