The Chinese
government continued to put the safeguarding and promotion
of the people's rights to subsistence and development on the
top of its agenda, and spared no effort to develop the
economy, enhance the comprehensive national strength and
improve the people 's access to subsistence and development.
In 2000, China rid itself completely of the influence of the
Asian financial crisis, the national economy began to
reverse the sliding trend, the growth rate obviously went
up, and the GDP reached 8,940.4 billion yuan, breaking
through the US$1,000 billion mark for the first time,
marking an increase of 8.0 percent over the figure for the
previous year. At the same time, the GDP per capita exceeded
US$ 800, overfulfilling the task of quadrupling 1980's GNP
per capita, and successfully realizing the second-step
strategic objectives of the modernization drive. In 2000,
China's overall import and export volume reached US$474.3
billion-worth, or an increase of 31. 5 percent over that of
the previous year. At the end of 2000, the state foreign
exchange reserve reached US$165.6 billion, or an increase of
US$10.9 billion over that at the beginning of 2000. To date,
China's GDP has increased from the 11th in world ranking in
the 1970s to the seventh. In the 1970s, the total import and
export volume and foreign exchange reserve ranked 32nd and
39th, respectively, in the world, but now they rank eighth
and second, respectively. China ranks first in the world in
the output of major industrial and agricultural products,
such as iron and steel, coal, cement, chemical fertilizer,
TV sets, grain, cotton, meat and aquatic products. With
sufficient commodities, China's effective supply ability has
been greatly improved.
The
income of urban and rural residents has gone up steadily,
and their standard of living has continued to improve. The
Chinese people nationwide have jumped from the stage of
having enough to eat and wear to that of living a better-off
life. In 2000, the disposable income per urban resident came
to 6,280 yuan, or an increase of 6.4 percent over that of
the previous year, in real terms; the net income per rural
resident reached 2,253 yuan, or a growth of 2.1 percent over
that of the previous year, in real terms. During the Ninth
Five-Year Plan period (1996-2000), savings deposits of urban
and rural residents more than doubled, and by 2000 had
topped 6,400 billion yuan, or an increase of more than five
times compared to what it had been eight years previously.
The consumption level has been constantly improved, and the
average annual growth rate of the volume of total retail
sales of consumer goods during the Ninth Five-Year Plan
period reached 10.6 percent.
The structure of consumption
has been optimized: The proportion of the expenditure for
clothes, food and daily necessities has decreased by a large
margin, and the proportion of the expenditure for housing,
communications and telecommunications, medical and health
care, culture, education and recreation has gone up rapidly.
In 1999, the consumption expenditure of urban and rural
residents, excluding that for clothing, food, housing and
daily necessities, made up 29.3 percent and 21.6 percent of
their total consumption expenditure, respectively, or an
increase of 8.2 percentage points and 6.2 percentage points,
respectively, over the figures for 1995. In 2000, the
Engel's coefficient of urban residents (the proportion of
food expenditure in the total consumption expenditure) was
about 40 percent, or a drop of close to 10 percentage points
from that in 1995, and a decrease of 18 percentage points
from that in 1978. Meanwhile, the Engel's coefficient of
rural residents was about 50 percent, or a decrease of about
8 percentage points from that of 1995, and approximately 19
percentage points lower than that of 1954. As for food
consumption, grain consumption has decreased, and that of
aquatic products, meat, domestic fowls, eggs, milk and other
foodstuffs related to domestic animals has increased
substantially. At present, for every 100 urban households
there are 116.6 color TV sets, 90.5 washing machines, 86.7
refrigerators, and 30.8 air- conditioners -- close to the
level of developed countries. For every 100 rural households
there are 38.24 color TV sets, 24.32 washing machines and
10.64 refrigerators, increases of 21.32, 7.42 and 5.49,
respectively, over the figures for 1995. Not so long ago,
almost no Chinese family owned a household computer, video
camera, microwave oven or VCD player. In 1999, however, for
every 100 urban households there were 5.91 household
computers, 1.06 video cameras, 12 microwave ovens and 25 VCD
players.
Housing conditions
have been continuously improved. The living space per urban
resident increased from 8.1 sq m in 1995 to 9.8 sq m in
1999; and the living space per rural resident grew from 21
sq m to 24.2 sq m. In 2000, 510 million sq m of floor space
of urban residential buildings were completed; and the
construction of rural residential buildings totaling a floor
space of 850 million sq m was completed. Hence, housing
conditions have been further improved.
While improving the people's
living standards across the board, the Chinese government
has attached great importance to ensuring that
poverty-stricken people have enough to eat and wear. Since
the initiation of reform and opening-up in 1979, China has
engaged in a large-scale, development-oriented aid-the-poor
drive nationwide in a planned and organized way. By the end
of 2000, the incidence rate of poverty in rural areas had
dropped from 30.7 percent in 1978 to about 3 percent. The
net income per farmer in the 592 poverty-stricken counties
at the top of the state aid-the- poor agenda, increased from
648 yuan in 1994 to 1,348 yuan in 2000. More than 97 percent
of the townships in the poverty-stricken areas nationwide
are now accessible by bus and have electricity; and 98
percent of such townships have small hospitals. The problem
of ensuring that the poverty-stricken people have enough to
eat and wear has basically been solved, and their quality of
life has been greatly improved, forming a striking contrast
with the situation worldwide in which the absolutely
poverty-stricken population keeps increasing. The UN
Development Program holds that China's achievements in the
development-oriented aid-the-poor work have provided a model
for the developing countries, and even for the whole world.
Medical care and the physique of the people have constantly
improved. At the end of 2000, China had 325,000 medical
centers (including clinics), 3.18 million hospital beds and
4.49 million medical personnel. Some 89.8 percent of
villages had medical centers, with 1.32 million rural
doctors and other medical personnel. Meanwhile, physical
culture has developed vigorously, a nationwide
health-building drive has been launched, and the physique of
the Chinese people throughout the country has improved
greatly. In the past three years, the State Administration
of Sport and all the provinces, autonomous regions and
centrally administered municipalities have invested in the
construction of nearly 10,000 special health-building
outlets. In addition, China has constructed a total of 1,939
health-building projects for the whole people. All these
have provided favorable conditions for the launching of the
health-building drive across the country. In 2000, the
Chinese government set up a people's physique monitoring
system, planning to include the people's physique monitoring
targets in the state's comprehensive social development
appraisal targets. China has mounted the stage of world
sport in all its sectors and joined the front ranks of
sports internationally. At the 27th Olympic Games, held in
2000, Chinese athletes won 28 gold medals, 16 silver medals
and 15 bronze medals, ranking China third in the world at
the Sydney Olympics. In domestic and international games in
2000, Chinese athletes won 110 world championships, and 14
athletes and two teams chalked up a total of 22 world
records on 30 occasions.
The
drastic improvement of the people's living standards has
greatly raised the level of the people's health. The death
rate of the Chinese population decreased from 33 per
thousand before 1949 to 6.46 per thousand in 1999. The
people's life-expectancy on average was raised from 35 years
before 1949 to 71.8 years in 2000, or 10 years longer than
that of the developing countries and reaching the level of
the moderately-developed countries.
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